


Do you think about me? (I think about you)

by vivilove



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Crush, Awkward situations, Complicated Relationships, Cunnilingus, Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Heart Attacks, I shouldn't even have to tag that but here we are, Idiots in Love, Imperfect People, Interns & Internships, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark are Cousins, Lowered inhibitions, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, POV Sansa Stark, Pining, Sudden/unexpected loss, Time Skips, Workplace Relationship, background Sam/Gilly, if that bothers you don't read i guess, past suicide/suicidal thoughts mentioned, there's definitely some awkward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivilove/pseuds/vivilove
Summary: Sansa seems fated to fall for Jon even though he lives in Dorne...even though he is her cousin.When a family reunion brings them together again and desires to a head, they share a memorable night until events beyond their control risk tearing them apart for good.But maybe itisfate that they wind up together for, eighteen months later, Sansa accepts an internship in Kings Landing only to discover that Jon works at the same firm.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 579
Kudos: 430





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if this will be anyone’s cup of tea but I’ve been thinking about this story in my head for a while. I have a good outline for it (a rarity for me) so hopefully I can stay motivated to stick with it. 
> 
> It's been a while since I've written anything lengthy entirely from Sansa's POV so I'm trying that. I may break and do some Jon POVs later but we'll see. I hope some of you enjoy it anyway :)

As a younger girl, Sansa Stark couldn’t say she’d thought all that often of her cousin Jon from Dorne. She knew her Aunt Lyanna had had him young. Sansa was vaguely aware there was some scandal attached to the matter but it was one of those family things that was kept hush-hush and she’d been instructed early on by her mother not to question her father over it.

If he had continued growing up around Winterfell, things might’ve been different. She’d been told that Jon and Robb had played together all the time when they were little. But when Jon was seven and Sansa was four, her aunt had married Arthur Dayne and, soon after, the three of them had moved south.

Thus, the cousins didn’t see much of each other over the intervening fifteen years. Oh, there were nameday cards, pictures exchanged via the parents and some occasional holiday meetings but Starfall was so far from Winterfell. Her father and his sister kept in touch but Sansa didn’t see them the way she regularly saw her Uncle Benjen.

When Sansa had been ten, Jon had come up to stay with them for a couple of weeks while his parents took a cruise. He and Robb had gotten along very well. He’d also immediately seemed to click with Arya which bothered Sansa more than she would’ve expected. Maybe it was because Arya had rather rudely said something about Sansa liking ‘boring girly stuff’ and Jon snickering over it the second day he was there. Sansa had decided to ignore them all at that point and stuck to it.

But when Sansa was fourteen, Jon came North again with his mother and things were different this time.

They’d come up to view the nearby university he was considering attending the following year and Sansa had quite a surprise when her father ushered them into the house where everyone waited to greet them after he’d picked them up from the airport.

After hugging her aunt, she stood back watching Robb assist Rickon in getting reacquainted with the cousin he didn’t recall from the previous trip, amused and pleased by how natural Jon was with the precocious seven-year-old despite being of a quieter disposition than any of her siblings.

He’d grown taller which she’d expect but he was more grown up somehow than she’d anticipated.

The picture of Jon her mother had on display on the mantle was from when Jon had visited four years earlier when he’d been thirteen with a buzz cut, acne and horn-rimmed glasses. That was how she pictured Jon in her mind.

That image didn’t match the young man before her at all.

At seventeen, he’d grown his hair out a good bit, such lovely curls, his skin had cleared and he’d exchanged his glasses for contact lenses. Well, at night he said he still wore his glasses. Sansa had a sneaking suspicion he’d look quite good in them.

Her cousin Jon from Dorne was…gods, he was hot.

_Gross._

_Well, he is!_

This didn’t matter, she told herself objectively. He was her _cousin_. He lived in _Dorne_. Probably had a girlfriend, too.

Nevertheless, she was strangely fascinated and couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking at him, though discretely, every time they were in the same room. As it happened, she found herself wandering into whatever room Jon was in as often as she could manage it.

Naturally, Arya took note of it.

“I didn’t think you even liked him.”

“What?” _Like him?! What do you mean by ‘like’ him?!_

“You’re always staring at him and hanging around now. Last time, you barely exchanged ten words. Well, you’re still not really talking to him but…anyway, it’s weird.”

“You’re weird,” Sansa clapped back defensively but Arya didn’t rise to the bait.

She had _thought_ she’d been discrete. At least Arya didn’t say all that in front of anyone else for a change.

“I guess I’m trying to be more mature this time.”

“Mature?” Arya snorted.

“But I suppose I don’t know what to say to him,” she said, ignoring Arya’s derision as her cheeks started growing inexplicably warm at the thought of having a one-on-one conversation with Jon. “And why wouldn’t I like him? He’s family.”

She was sure she sounded very mature and not remotely paranoid of being caught at something in that reply.

“Well, he doesn’t say a ton but he’s easy to talk to if you try,” Arya said with a shrug before skipping off again.

Yes, try. She could talk to Jon. That was simple. She would prove that she did like Jon as her family and that was all.

She knew he liked football. He was fond of fencing and was on his school’s squad. She’d heard her mother saying he was allergic to shellfish. Robb had said Jon made better scores on his placement tests than him so he was clearly book smart. What else…

He was older but not that much older and he’d be going to university next year like Robb. Sansa was only three years behind them. She should probably ask him stuff about his future plans. That’d be very grown-up of her.

She cornered him one evening in the living room after his campus visit. He’d been playing video games with the others but now he was just watching football and eating chips by himself.

“What’d you think of Winterfell U, Jon?”

“It was alright. Did you want the television?”

“No, I’m fine. I can watch this with you if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.”

As she took a seat beside him on the loveseat, he moved his chips out of his lap and to the coffee table. Their knees touched when he leaned forward and Sansa jerked back immediately as if he’d burned her. Why? Her brothers had little respect for personal space when they were sitting with her here. She was used it and didn’t leap like that when they touched her. Jon murmured an apology. Why? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

Gods, Arya was right. This _was_ weird. Maybe she was the weirdo. Why did she feel so stiff around him? Why did he seem stiff, too?

_Talk! Say something!_

That would help, wouldn’t it?

“How’s school?” he asked just as she was asking, “What do you want to study?”

They shared an awkward chuckle before he said, “You first.”

“School’s alright. Kind of boring some days and kind of frustrating others. I won an art competition last month. First place even though I was one of the youngest to enter.”

Did that sound too braggy? Why’d she tell him that? It was just a school thing, not a big deal. Stupid.

“I know. Your dad told my mum and she told me. I think that’s great, Sansa.”

“Really? You do?”

_Really?!_

Her complexion loved to betray her emotions and she was embarrassed and also pleased that her dad had been bragging about her winning and that her aunt had thought it was worth telling Jon and that he was happy for her.

“’Course,” he answered, munching on another chip.

“Well…yeah, I wasn’t sure if you would’ve heard. It was just a school thing but thanks. You mother sent pictures from that fencing tournament you were in in the spring.”

“She did? Gods,” he muttered, raking his hand through his hair. He had very nice hair. She could almost picture him pulling off his fencing mask and doing the same thing after a victory, all sweaty and…manly.

She wondered again if Jon had a girlfriend. If she was his girlfriend, she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands out of his hair.

_But you’re NOT his girlfriend nor will you be ever!_

“Um…you were district champion, right?”

“Yeah.”

He looked a little embarrassed now. New topic.

“So, what do you think you want to study when you get to university?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I don’t have any big plans yet. Do you like painting or sketching better?”

“Uh…” Were they back on art? Why? “Sketching although I like to paint sometimes. I think I want to study more of that when I grow up.”

When I grow up?! Had she just said that?! She just made herself sound like a little kid!

_You are a kid._

“Anyway, I want to be an artist but I don’t know what I’ll do with it,” she finished lamely as her shoulders slumped.

Did he think she sounded like a little kid? Did ‘I want to be an artist’ sound any different than her declaration at eight that she would be marrying a prince someday?

“Cool.”

He wasn’t smirking or rolling his eyes when he said that. He sounded sincere.

Sansa relaxed…marginally.

He offered her one of his chips so she took it. He returned to eating and watching football.

As they passed the basket back and forth and the silence stretched on, Sansa stopped relaxing and started to agonize over what they might talk about next.

Jon seemed fine with just sitting there but she felt like she was ready to crawl out of her skin. She was so _aware_ of him, of every move he made and breath he took. She was fixating on the way his lips puckered when he’d close them around a chip, for gods’ sake. What was with her? Why couldn’t she just sit next to Jon like Arya would eating chips and watching football?

Seriously panicking to come up with a new topic of discussion, she blurted out the thing that kept crossing her mind. "So, um...do you have a girlfriend?" 

_Oh, shit! Why did you ask him that?!_

She wasn't sure Jon heard her though because he started choking on a chip right then and, luckily (or unluckily), Robb turned up as she was whacking him on the back and offering him sips of water.

“What are you doing sitting here with her?” Robb asked in a tone that suggested no one expected Jon to spend time with her.

Her heart sank. Why would he sit with her anyway? It wasn’t like he’d sought her out. She’d come upon him and invaded his space.

“We’re watching the match,” Jon said with a touch of annoyance. Was he annoyed with her now that Robb pointed things out?

“Since when do you watch football, Sans?”

“I’ve watched it plenty!”

“Oh yeah? Which teams are playing then?”

“The yellow team and the blue team.”

Robb started laughing and her breath caught in her throat because she really wanted to cry for some reason. Why wasn’t she allowed to spend time with Jon? To sit with Jon and watch a stupid game?

“She’s keeping me company and keeping me from eating all the chips by myself,” Jon cut in. He gave her a playful smile and she thought she might cry for another reason now. He was so sweet.

She grinned back at him, not caring if her face was crimson at the moment.

“Whatever,” Robb scoffed. “It’s a replay anyway. Wanna go into town with me? I’ll introduce you to my girl and some of our friends. Might come in handy if you’re really thinking of Winterfell U.”

“Okay, sure,” Jon said, casting another look her way before setting the basket of chips back down between them.

“Where are you taking him?” she asked Robb, not liking that she was clearly being left behind or that Robb might be introducing Jon to older teens…maybe older, _female_ teens.

“The Library.”

The Library was not a library. It was a coffeehouse, popular with the university students and the local kids who were old enough to drive. There was live music there some nights and even poetry readings occasionally. Sansa thought it sounded very grown up. Robb’s girlfriend liked it which was the only reason he went. Otherwise, he’d probably suggest going for slushies or something.

“It’s Sunday night,” she said as Jon started to rise. _I want to go, too._

“So?”

“We’ve got school tomorrow and it’s already after nine.” _If I can’t go, you shouldn’t be allowed to go._

“Uh huh, we do but Jon doesn’t and he’s our guest and Dad said okay. Don’t wait up for us, Pippi Longstockings,” Robb added with a smirk before tugging her braid like he was always doing which always made her scowl at him which always made him laugh.

“Ugh, Robb!”

She hated when he did that but she hated it most of all tonight. She hated being reminded that she was younger and that her braided red hair made him think of a freckled fictional girl who never wanted to grow up. Sansa wanted to be grown up. She wanted Jon to think she was grown up…and pretty, too.

Jon didn’t call her Pippi Longstockings but he was grinning as he grabbed his jacket. He followed her brother out the door but leaned back in to say, “Have a good night, Sansa. Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Oh…you’re welcome,” she replied softly.

Great. Now, her tummy was all knotted up from all the chips she’d eaten…and maybe something else.

* * *

The next night, the night before Jon and Aunt Lyanna were to fly back to Dorne, Sansa overheard her parents and aunt talking in the kitchen when she was coming to get a drink. They were talking about the campus visit and how Lyanna wasn’t sure she’d liked it.

“It’s a good university. He’d have family nearby,” her father countered.

“True but it kills me thinking of my baby so far away from me,” her aunt whined kind of sweetly.

“I can hardly blame you. Robb keeps talking about going to Riverlands. I try not to grimace too visibly.”

“She’s not very successful at it,” her father said in reply to her mother’s statement and the three adults laughed.

Sansa was still standing outside the doorway, rooted to her spot. She shouldn’t eavesdrop but would they keep talking this freely if they knew she was here?

Curious like a cat and quiet as a mouse, she waited for the right moment to walk in…when they weren’t saying anything interesting anymore.

“I can’t believe how much Jon favors you, Ned.”

“He certainly looks like a Stark.”

 _Why wouldn’t he?_ Sansa thought. He was a Stark. He wasn’t her Uncle Arthur’s biological son and Jon’s biological father was never mentioned by anyone. She could see how he favored her father and Uncle Benjen both though she’d never thought much of it.

“Arya reminds me of you at that age, Lya.”

Sansa smiled at that. The sisters still found themselves at odds here and there but not as often as they once had and Arya had confessed recently that she didn’t believe she was pretty. Sansa had assured her that she _was_ pretty because, even when they fought and nearly hated each other, they never _really_ hated each other and she didn’t want Arya to be down on herself.

But their aunt was beautiful and, if Arya looked like her aunt at that age, she was clearly meant to be a beauty, too.

She started to join them at last when her aunt said, “And Sansa favors you greatly Catelyn. She’s truly radiant and you’re going to have a very difficult time keeping the boys away soon, I’m afraid, Ned.”

Was that true? Sansa believed she was pretty but radiant? No one had ever called her radiant.

Her father laughed and said something too low for Sansa to hear but it didn’t matter because suddenly she was consumed with something else.

Jon looked like her father and Sansa looked like her mother. Or did when they were younger. Why did that sound so romantic to her? What was wrong with her? She didn’t see her father at all when she looked at Jon. She just saw Jon…who was hot.

She heard footsteps approaching behind her and, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping, she whirled quickly as if she was heading from the kitchen instead of towards it.

“Hey, Sansa.”

“Hey!”

Jon’s eyes widened at the way she’d squeaked that. He must have taken his contacts out already because he was wearing his glasses. It only made him cuter. His hair was messy and she wanted to run her fingers through it so badly. Why did she...

_Oh gods._

Like a ton of bricks, it hit and Sansa realized precisely what was going on. Maybe she should've earlier. She’d had a few of them by now. But she never expected this with _him_.

Regardless, it was time to confess...to herself anyway. She had herself a big, fat crush on her hot cousin Jon.

“I was going to get a Coke,” he said, pointing to the kitchen.

“A Coke, huh? We’ve got some of those.”

“I know. I’ve been here a few days now.”

“Right.” We’ve got some of those? Argh!! She sounded like such a dork. Or at least, everything sounded stupid inside her head. Her brain seemed like it was short-circuiting or something with him standing right there in his glasses and tight tee and looking so desirable. She felt like all he had to do was look at her and he’d know what she was thinking.

“Robb and I were thinking about watching a movie. Wanna join us? I was gonna grab some more of your mum’s chip and we could share the loveseat again so you could keep me from eating them all.” He was grinning at her. Gods, why’d he have to be so damn cute grinning like that?!

“A movie? Uh…yeah. That’d be…”

A movie with Jon? On the loveseat together? With their knees possible touching and maybe their thighs or arms? While Jon passed the chips back and forth as she was attempting to cope with this shiny new revelation that she was majorly crushing on him?! And while Robb was there with them?!

_I’ll implode!!_

“Thanks but I was just getting some water and I was going to head to bed.”

“Bed? It’s 8:30.”

Damn, it was early. Even Rickon was still up. “I’ve got reading to do for Lit. I like to read in bed.”

“Oh, I like to read in bed, too. What’s the book?”

“Um…I forgot the title.” His grin turned into a confused frown. “It’s a boring book. It’ll probably put me right out and…” She feigned a yawn. “Wow, I’m really beat. Goodnight, Jon.”

His confused frown had changed into something more closely resembling a kicked puppy and now she felt like crap.

_Damn it. Stupid lying idiot with a stupid crush. Someone please just kill me now._

“Okay then, Sansa. Goodnight,” he said uncertainly before moving past her into the kitchen where the grownups were still talking. They immediately broke off whatever they were talking about to greet him.

Sansa flew up the stairs, sniffling back frustrated tears, not daring to look back.

Jon left early the next morning with his mother before it was time to leave for school. Sansa hugged him tightly when their turn to say goodbye came and told him she would miss him. He just nodded and gave her a crushing hug in return.

She thought of him non-stop it seemed for the next three months. She wrote about him in her diary each night. She created elaborate fantasies in her head about wearing slinky dresses in front of him or saying clever, witty things and him really _seeing_ her then. She pictured what she'd say to him the next time they met and maybe offering to watch a movie with him or maybe he'd take her to The Library. She daydreamed about him coming over to the house regularly because he hated the dorms at Winterfell U and he'd wind up spending tons of time with just her when everyone else was conveniently gone.

Or not.

Around three months after he’d left and Sansa had spent so much energy pining for her cousin down in Dorne, her father told them that Jon had been offered a scholarship at the university his step-father had attended in Dorne and wouldn’t be coming to Winterfell U after all.

Sansa wouldn’t see him again for five years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was mostly setup. The next chapter will pick up five years later at a Stark Family Reunion where the real action starts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sansa reunite, take a hike and share a dance before their grandparents stop them for a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification in this story, the legal drinking age in Westeros (and age of consent) is eighteen. Sansa is nineteen and Jon is twenty-two.

Five years had passed since Sansa had developed an intense but short-lived crush on her cousin Jon. Well, it wasn’t that short-lived and she wasn’t entirely sure it had been completely eradicated either. _Close enough._

Did she still think about him though? Of course, she did. He was family. She loved him. She just wasn’t _in_ love with him. 

(Or was she a little bit?)

Didn’t matter. 

She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was nineteen. So much more grown up than that girl of fourteen had been. 

She’d grown up, developed other crushes, dated a few other boys and even fallen in love with one of them. Well, sort of. She’d thought it was love but he’d wound up being a pompous jerk and she’d fallen out of love about as fast as she’d fallen in so she supposed it wasn’t true love.

Meanwhile, Jon was just her cousin who lived in Dorne and that was all he was meant to be.

Maybe.

Did he ever think about her? 

Well, he'd be forced to soon enough, at least a little bit. 

Her parents had decided to host a family reunion for the extended Stark clan right after Robb and Jon graduated from their respective universities. Everyone would be coming, all the in-laws and outlaws her Uncle Benjen joked. And Aunt Lyanna, Uncle Arthur and Jon would be flying up from Dorne.

Their house was large but not _that_ large. Sansa's grandparents, Jon and his parents would be staying with them but anyone else from out of town had taken rooms at a hotel in town where a dinner would be held to kick off the weekend tonight along with some other events. 

Since Sansa had just finished her first year of university and was essentially free for the summer, her mother had enlisted her help with the decorating. The Friday afternoon when everyone was due to arrive at the hotel, she was working on hanging a welcoming banner outside the banquet room. 

And that’s where she came face to face with him again after years apart. 

“What’s buzzin’, cousin?” 

She turned, not knowing who had spoken initially to find Jon right behind her wearing a leather jacket and jeans along with glasses, a beard and the most fetching damn grin she’d ever seen. Shit, he was even hotter than he’d been at seventeen! Even with his curls swept back in a manbun! _No fair!_ she thought considering she was currently sporting overalls splattered with paint and braids. 

“Oh gods, Jon!” she chirped, flinging her arms around him. She’d missed him, okay? Nothing wrong with that. 

Just as quick, she recalled her messy overalls and pulled back. He didn’t let her go though. His strong arms held onto her, squeezing her in return as she inhaled the faint but pleasing scent of his cologne. 

“Gods, look at you, Sansa. All grown up, huh?" 

"I guess we both are," she said, blushing as he let her go. "And who says, 'what's buzzin', cousin' these days?"

"Me, I guess," he laughed before pointing at her handiwork. "Did you make this sign?” 

“Yes,” she said and wiped off her hands as he was studying it. Her mother had simply asked her to make a sign to be hung outside their banquet room at the hotel to avoid any confusion of where their guests were meant to meet. She’d gone a little overboard maybe.

“This is amazing, Sansa. I love the wolves all along the border. You’ve done evergreen forests and snow-capped mountains as well as the rills of the North, too, haven’t you?”

“I did.”

“That's the skyline of Kings Landing and the Trident, right?”

"Yes."

"And these are...these red mountains are for Starfall, aren't they?" 

She nodded happily so pleased that he saw what she’d tried to do. “I wanted to represent all the places our extended family lives now. I've never seen Dorne except in pictures so I wasn't sure if they'd be recognizable.”

“They're fantastic. All of it is. You’ve made it about all of us.” He really saw what she’d tried to do then. 

“Thank you."

"Mum, Arthur, come and look at what Sansa made!”

She turned to see her aunt and uncle were coming to join them. They exchanged hugs and chatted over her sign while catching up. 

They’d driven to the hotel straight from the airport even though they’d be staying at the house. Sansa was pleased to see them all but couldn't help be amazed at how good Jon looked even after the long flight. _Definitely not fair._

“I thought you’d go by the house first.”

“We were going to but the flight was delayed and time was running short," her aunt explained. "We’ve been out front speaking with my parents and yours who told us you were in here. Jon wanted to come find you but he went looking a while ago. We were beginning to wonder if he’d got lost.”

“Did you get lost?” Sansa asked, smiling at him. 

A slight flush crept up his cheeks as he shook his head. “No, I found the room easily enough. I was just, um…I was watching you work on your finishing touches.” 

He’d watched her working? Whoa.

_Calm down. He’s just Jon and…oh, don’t do this to yourself again._

She would though. Perhaps that was inevitable even if he was just here for the weekend. 

And what she would reflect on, debate and examine thoroughly later on was how he seemed determined to give her his undivided attention tonight. Two hours later, after she’d changed into something prettier and cleaner than the overalls and washed away the paint, Jon found her in the banquet room and it was clear he had no intensions of just saying 'hello' and moving on. 

They lined up together for the buffet-style meal, working their way along the line making selections to fill up their plates and chatting about the art classes she was taking and his recently obtained marketing degree. They found a seat together and talked about his fencing days, the concert she'd attended last month and her friends and dormitory-living.

They both _happened_ to mention they were single, her for the past six months and him for a little longer than that. They covered all manner of topics interesting to people their age only quieting long enough for their grandparents to formally welcome everyone after the main meal, thank them for coming and encourage everyone to try the desserts.

She knew Jon talked to Robb occasionally via text and social media but he remained by her side, even after dessert, choosing to stay with her instead of sitting with Robb and his girlfriend Jeyne further down the table closer to her parents. She wasn’t sure why but she wouldn’t question it too hard. They'd not seen each other in years and she supposed he just wanted to keep catching up. She sure did. 

However, by night’s end, she knew she was growing besotted again. Probably more so than at fourteen. Gods, she was hopeless. She’d never talked to Jon so much in her life but she liked everything she learned of him. Arya had been right. He didn’t necessarily say a lot but he was easy to talk to. He was also attractive and interested in what she had to say as well. If only the night could just last a little longer. 

Uncle Arthur had rented a car for the weekend and invited Sansa and Arya to ride back to the house with the three of them since seating was already tight between her father’s and Robb’s cars. Arya was shorter but Sansa wound up in the middle of the backseat somehow wedged between her and Jon. Tired from all the work she’d been doing for the reunion, the warmth of the car with the heat blowing and the wine she’d had with dinner, Sansa found her eyelids growing heavy as Jon and Arya chatted across her. 

When her head started bobbing, Jon shifted in his seat slightly and encouraged her to lay her head on his shoulder. She could smell the leather of his jacket and the faint hint of pine from his cologne and felt ridiculously content and cozy. She fell asleep.

“We’re home, sleepy girl,” Jon murmured in her ear, grinning when her eyes fluttered open as she slowly blinked at him. She was feeling dazed as he helped her up the front walk with an arm around her waist for support. She didn't think her short nap was entirely to blame for the sensation. 

Inside, they were joined by the others in the foyer, a large passel of Starks, so she shook off her drowsiness long enough to wish them all a goodnight, giving Jon a separate goodnight along with her thanks, and headed upstairs. 

When her head hit the pillow, he was all she could think of though she told herself tonight had been an anomaly and probably the only time he’d pay this much attention to her. The rest of the weekend they’d probably be too busy interacting with everyone else to spend that much time together.

She was wrong about that.

* * *

The next morning, there was a hike planned through the woods to one of the last remaining Weirwoods in Westeros. Sansa normally would’ve skipped it. Her grandmother, mother and aunt were planning a museum excursion for some of the others that Sansa had planned on joining even though she'd seen the museum in Winterfell countless times by now. 

But when Jon asked her specifically if she was going on the hike during breakfast, she found herself saying yes...and doing her best to ignore her siblings' looks of astonishment. Thus, she found herself trekking through the woods with her father, uncles, brothers and Arya an hour later along with Jon who looked stupidly handsome in flannel and blue jeans. _He truly has no mercy at all,_ she sighed inwardly. 

The hike was classified as moderate but Sansa would've named it arduous. Uneven ground, muddy in places, rocky in others with a few steep inclines and descents as they made their way over hill and vale. It would be roughly three-hours round trip, too. But the woods and meadows were beautiful and Jon stuck by her side which she certainly enjoyed. She enjoyed that unashamedly until she caught Arya rolling her eyes at her when Jon was helping her up a steep bit of the trail. 

"I can do it. You don't have to go slow for me." She was flustered and wondering if he regretted asking her to join now while Arya stood at the top of the rise looking annoyed. 

"I know you can do it but I don't mind sticking with you...unless you'd rather I not."

She stopped stealing glances at her sister and looked at him. There was that kicked puppy look again like the one he'd given her five years ago when she'd turned him down to watch a movie together. She hadn't meant to sound snappish or annoyed by him at all. "No, I like you sticking with me. I just didn't want you to feel like you had to."

"Maybe I don't _have_ to but I _want_ to," he said quietly. 

"Okay," she said breathily. She hoped he just thought she needed to catch her breath instead of wondering if this was what it was like to swoon. 

"Come on, slowpokes!" Arya called over her shoulder.

Jon just chuckled at her sister and whispered, "Don't worry about her. We'll go as slow as you like, Sansa."

 _As slow as I like? Oh, don't give me ideas, mister._ Gods, she _was_ about to swoon. 

However, Sansa wasn't the only one struggling a bit as they neared their destination. Her father had been grumbling about his knees on and off to Uncle Benjen the past half hour and Uncle Arthur got winded during the final ascent and said he'd have to take a breather. Sansa gratefully sat down beside him to rest her feet since her hiking boots were a little snug and told the others they’d catch up. The two of them talked companionably together about Dorne for several minutes when she overheard Arya rather loudly asking Jon why he was so worried about ‘Slowpoke Sansa.’ 

Her cheeks were burning when Jon reappeared around the bend the next moment carrying a long and sturdy-looking stick and wearing a smile for them both. 

“Sit as long as you like but we’re close to our destination and I thought, if you feel up to hiking the rest of the way, this might help, Dad,” he told Arthur handing over the make-shift hiking stick.

“Thank you, son,” Arthur said, obviously pleased as he stood to try it out.

Jon offered her a hand to stand up next but held onto it for a few seconds while letting Arthur get a head start on them. “Do your feet hurt?” he whispered. 

“A little,” she confessed. “I’ve never gone hiking in these boots.” He raised his eyebrows. "I've not gone hiking in ten years either." 

He chuckled quietly. "I hope me asking this morning didn't prompt you into something you're regretting now."

"Oh no! No regrets! I'm enjoying it. It's really lovely. I just wish my boots were better for this sort of thing."

"Want me to carry you?”

She scoffed, thinking he was joking and then realized he was dead serious. “Are you in that good of shape?” He certainly looked like he worked out but she weighed around nine stones and the rest of the hike was uphill. 

“Yeah, I think I could manage a piggyback ride that far anyway. We can roll you back down after we see the tree,” he said, giving her a wink.

She gave him a lighthearted shove and laughed. Gods, that piggyback ride was tempting but she shook her head, saying she’d manage. Much as the thought of Jon carrying her appealed in one respect, her self-esteem refused to let Arya see her being carried on this hike after she’d been labeled ‘Slowpoke Sansa.’ 

* * *

That evening, the reunion-goers were gathering at the hotel again for drinking and dancing. Sansa sat with Jeyne and her third cousin Alys sipping lemon schnapps. She figured she'd earned the right to unwind after surviving her wilderness ordeal and didn't even care about the teasing she'd got from her sister and younger brothers when Jon had indeed given her a piggyback ride for a section of the return hike. _How could I care when I had an excuse to wrap my arms and legs around him?_

At present, she was feeling a bit smug that she was of age to drink and Arya was not as she tapped her toe along to the music. The songs were all oldies, things her grandparents had probably listened to as teens but she didn’t mind. 

What she did mind though was the blister that had developed on her big toe. 

She was forced to exchange her usual dancing shoes for a basic pair of sneakers if she didn’t want to forgo the dance altogether. They didn’t exactly go with the blue floral dress with the swishy skirt she’d chosen but this was hardly a fancy night club in Kings Landing. It was a family reunion. She’d worn her hair down but kept her make-up light, just a little shimmer on her eyelids, touch of mascara and some soft lipstick. 

But with the way Jon’s eyes seemed to light up when he saw her across the dancefloor, she was certainly glad she’d gone to that much effort and worn the dress instead of something to match the sneakers. He'd been standing talking to Robb and some of the Karstark kin around their age but he came over to join her a few minutes later. Was she dreaming this? If she was, she didn't want it to end. 

They stood near the bar for a time talking, drinking, snagging appetizers and agreeing that her mother's fish and chips were sorely missed tonight while speaking to various family members who came along. 

It all seemed natural enough, two cousins fairly close in age hanging out. But ever so often, she'd catch him looking at her, his eyes swiftly raking up and down her figure or landing on her lips or hair after they'd both had a few and it didn't feel as innocent then. Was he interested in her? Could he possibly be looking at her the way she looked at him?

“You look beautiful, Sansa,” he said at one point, his voice low in a way that made her tummy tighten up. Her mouth flew open, not knowing how to respond even though 'thanks' was a simple enough word. “Wanna dance?" he asked next before she could manage it. "I mean…if that’s not too weird.”

“Why would it be weird? Aren’t people supposed to dance at a dance?”

“Well, yeah but we’re…never mind. It’s not weird at all.”

He grasped her hand and she wondered if it was just her palm that was sweaty. His felt like it might be, too. 

She let him lead her to the center of the floor, only realizing _why_ this might seem weird to anyone else once they got there and a slow song started immediately. They were surrounded by other couples, married couples like her parents and romantically-involved young people like Robb and Jeyne while they were cousins. 

Alright, so cousins weren’t completely banned from marrying or anything but it wasn’t as usual a thing as it had once been in Westeros and it had vocal opponents who called it immoral and detrimental and whatever other buzz words organized religion liked throwing around when they told people how they were supposed to live their lives. 

_Marrying?! No one’s talking about marrying?! It’s one damn dance!_

Nevertheless, as Jon shyly smiled at her and placed one hand on her waist and wrapped the other around her back, Sansa felt something she’d never felt half so strongly with any other guy. 

_Oh, you really are doing this again, aren't you? You're a goner for him all over again._

How was that possible? They'd not seen each other in so long and it wasn't as if they'd spent much time together before this weekend. But somehow, it just _felt_ right to her. 

_“When I fall in love_

_It will be forever_

_Or I’ll never fall in love…”_

“This alright?” he murmured as they began to sway.

"Mmm-hmm," she answered languidly.

"Are you tired from earlier?" She'd fallen asleep on him last night. Was he worried she was about to again? "No judgment here if you are. It was a rough hike. My legs feel like jelly."

"Then, why are you dancing?" she asked, her lips twitching with amusement. He didn't appear remotely jelly-legged as he held her. 

"Because I thought you might like to dance." _Oh help._

"I am a _bit_ tired."

“A bit?" he smirked. "You could rest your head on my shoulder again…if you like.”

If she liked? Yes, she would like. She would definitely like and she was in serious trouble.

“Okay.”

Their bodies moved a little closer so she could do as he’d suggested and they kept swaying. She could feel his breath ghosting across her cheek. She could picture him leaning forward to kiss it. If he did, she wouldn't mind. 

_“In a restless world like this is_

_Love is ended before it’s begun_

_And too many moonlight kisses_

_Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun…”_

For just a moment, it felt like they were alone in the world, like they were just a young couple sharing their first dance. 

Unfortunately, the moment didn’t last.

“Aren’t you two the pair?” their grandfather asked, laughing as he slapped Jon on the back. “Gods Lyarra, don’t they look like Ned and Cat did back in the day?”

_Yes, we do favor my parents but did you have to say that now, Grandpa?!_

“Hush, Rickard, you’re embarrassing the kids,” their grandmother said though she beamed at them both and continued with, “You do make a handsome couple on the dancefloor.”

_Et tu, Grandma?_

Jon stepped backwards, putting more space between them and a sudden awkwardness descended, making it seem like she'd just been doused with ice water. 

"Uh...hey Grandpa, Grandma," Jon stammered, letting go of her completely. 

It made her feel ludicrously empty inside when he did which was so, so stupid of her. He'd be leaving tomorrow night. Would another five years pass before they saw each other again? Would ten? Would he be married with kids the next time she laid eyes on him? What did she think this was? 

_It was just a dance. It didn't mean anything...except to me. Why'd they have to spoil this one moment? Maybe all I'll get? Why'd they have to say something to draw attention to it and make him uncomfortable that way?_

Outwardly, she plastered on a smile to speak with them, all congenial and polite the way they'd expect their Little Sansa to be. 

Inwardly, she was irrationally angry and hurt that their dance was ending before the song was even over.

 _What's wrong with you?! Talk to your grandparents and stop feeling resentful over...over things that aren't meant to be. They're your grandparents and you love them. Gods, they're_ our _grandparents._

They shared grandparents, for fuck's sake. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly, wondering what they'd all think of her if they could read her mind. 

Sansa stopped trying to indulge her fantasy of pretending that they could truly _be_ a couple then. She shoved her desires and wishes aside and made small talk with the old folks and Jon. It was pleasant enough…until the subject of Jon’s biological father came up.

"Rickard, this isn't the place for this," Grandma said uneasily as soon as the subject was raised. 

She had known there was some scandal involved but not the whole story. Her grandfather didn’t exactly enlighten her any, only went off on a diatribe about how Jon’s father had wronged Lyanna as Jon looked more and more uncomfortable. She'd never seen him this way, so angry. 

“Your uncles and I would’ve killed that nasty fucker if we could’ve got hold of him.”

“Rickard!"

"Well, I'm...shit, I'm sorry, Jon." The old man was visibly shaken and walked away.

"Jon, sweetheart. I'm so very sorry for that. He got riled up by one of his cousins earlier and he’s been drinking. He rarely drinks anymore,” their grandmother explained, patting Jon's cheek. 

He had been slurring his words some and never had her grandfather used foul language in her presence. It made Sansa feel small and frightened, like a child whose world was slipping off its axis. She wanted to reach for Jon's hand. She wanted his comfort and maybe to offer him some as well but he'd stepped back far enough that he was too far away for her to readily do so now. 

“Sansa, my lovey, be a dear and fetch your father for me. I think we need a ride home now."

“Yes, Grandma,” she answered, shooting Jon a sympathetic look before doing as her grandma asked. 

She found them quick enough and briefly explained the matter to her father, watching his face go from joyful to stony. Regardless, he said he'd handle it. He kissed her cheek and said for her not to fret just as she knew he would. 

When she returned after completing her errand, she hurried back to where she'd last been with Jon. He wasn't there. She didn't see him anywhere. 

After three circuits around the room, she questioned Arya to see if she’d seen where he’d gone. “Why do you want to know?” her sister asked, her eyes narrowed.

“Because I think Grandpa hurt his feelings without really meaning to.”

“Grandpa did?”

“I think so. He was saying stuff about Jon’s father.”

“Arthur?”

“No, the one who…”

“Oh goodness. Well, I saw him heading off through that door.” 

Arya pointed to a door at the back of the ballroom. Sansa thanked her and hurried off in search of him, to see if he needed comforting or cheer. That's what family did for family in need. It might be what a girl did for a guy she liked, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Sansa finds Jon and they share a heart-to-heart (along with some drinks and consider some questionable choices.) 
> 
> Lyrics from "When I Fall in Love" by Nat King Cole.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of talking, drinks and a dip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, me posting three consecutive days on the same fic is something that rarely happens but hopefully you're not all sick of this yet. But no, I won't be able to continue at this rate. I'm sorry 😩

It took her nearly twenty minutes to find him. She passed through the door Arya pointed out and found herself in one of the staff hallways where guests weren’t allowed. She tip-toed past an employee breakroom and slipped through a door that led her out to a courtyard. Though it was summer, the night had grown chilly and she hugged herself. She reentered the building where the main reception desk was, looking left and right.

On instinct, she took the left down a corridor that led to the hotel’s workout facility and the indoor pool. The treadmills and stationary bikes were all idle with dust on the control panels of most of the machines. She went to the pool area next. The overhead lights were off but she peaked through the partially fogged up door and saw the blueish pool lights within glowing through the perfectly still water.

Pools weren’t all that common in the North due to the climate so an indoor pool like this one would generally be popular. Sansa was sure some of the family with younger kids who were staying here for the reunion had been making good use of it.

But at the moment, it appeared deserted…except for a lone man in trousers and a black tee seated at one of the empty patio tables. His leather jacket was slung across another chair beside him.

She opened the door quietly, immediately feeling the change in humidity. Her hair would get frizzy but that didn’t matter. His curls would likely do the same.

There was a hot tub in the corner, its jets creating a steady, swishing hum of sound that made the room seem more private, isolated somehow. The low, wavering lighting added to the vacuum effect.

Jon had found himself a couple of bottles of beer somewhere along his way here. The first one looked half empty. His smile flickered on an off as she approached, a hint of cautiousness but clearly pleased to see her. He reminded her of her little brothers when they were in trouble but knew they weren't in trouble with _you_.

“Want one?”

He indicated the unopened bottle of a popular Northern stout, Direwolf. Her father and uncle liked this one. She liked the snarling, fierce wolf’s head on the label. She’d doodled copies of it a time or two and created her on variations.

Sansa wasn’t a beer drinker, didn’t like the taste. But he was offering and, even though they’d both already had a few drinks at the dance, turning him down wasn’t what she wanted to do.

“Sure.”

She took a seat, the scraping of her patio chair across the concrete echoing off the bare tiled walls. She raised the bottle to her lips while he watched her closely. She felt her cheeks growing hot at the possibly imagined scrutiny but at least in here the warmth and humidity could be blamed.

He started snickering at the grimace she couldn’t quite hide after her sip. He’d been waiting for that then.

“Don’t laugh at me! It’s very strong.”

“It is, sorry. Here, I picked these up as well. You can have them instead if you want.”

He passed over two mini bottles of peach vodka. “Were you planning to drink them, too?”

“Maybe…or maybe I’d hoped I might have some company.”

Her heart did a giddy leap. He’d hoped she’d follow him. She grinned and cracked one open. The fruity flavoring and vanilla undertones were definitely more her taste.

She hummed as she sat the half-empty mini back down. “So are we getting hammered tonight?”

“Hammered?”

“Yes. Will we get roaring drunk here by the hotel pool, out of sight of the grownups and behave like a couple of teenagers?”

“Technically, you _are_ still a teenager, Sansa,” he said, scrubbing at his beard.

“I’m nineteen, a woman, not a little girl. You said yesterday I was all grown up. I am. I’m only three years younger than you. I can vote, I can smoke and drink, I could live on my own if I wanted and fall horribly into debt all by myself. I’m old enough to consent to sex and-”

“Alright! You’re a woman!" He started chuckling next, shooting her a look that could be interpreted as both amused _and_ a touch uncomfortable. "You're definitely _not_ a little girl." 

Ignoring his muttering, she asked, “So, were we wanting to get away and forget about life for a while?”

“There’s a song there somewhere, I think.”

“Maybe make questionable choices?”

“Questionable choices? Well, the pool does look rather inviting.”

“You don’t have any trunks on under those trousers, do you?”

“Meh. Who needs trunks?” She gave him a shocked gasp which had him grinning like a fiend. “I can’t imagine you making many questionable choices, Sansa,” he said more seriously next.

“You might be surprised,” she said with a prim sniff as if she was truly some enigmatic woman full of tons of life experience when nothing could be farther from the truth. He was giving her a probing look like she might be that enigma though. It made her squirm. “Alright, my last questionable choice was dating Harry for three whole months before I opened my eyes to the facts about him.”

They’d briefly discussed their single status last night and Harry had come up. He’d admitted that Robb had mentioned him which surprised her. Why did Robb bother mentioning Harry to Jon? Or had Jon asked about her love life? That was too much to unpack right now.

“The facts being that he was a prick?”

That had been what Robb had called him. She tried hiding her grin that Jon labeled him the same. “You’re not wrong,” she said, taking another sip.

“And are you wanting to forget about anything else or make some other questionable choices tonight?”

_If I said the bit about thinking I’m falling for my cousin, how would you take it?_

She didn’t say that of course. “Not especially. I’ve had a good day despite a painful blister on my toe from the hike.”

“Aww, my poor sweet girl.” Her eyes flashed dangerously and he held his hands up in surrender. “I mean, my poor sweet _woman!”_

She laughed but his dark grey eyes turned soft as he gazed down at her sneaker-clad feet. He started biting at his full bottom lip and she had to look away then because… _damn_.

“Me, too,” he said next. “Not a blister. I mean, I’ve had a good day.” She faced him again, giving a skeptical look. “Alright, it was really good up until a little while ago. Have you ever been hammered, Sansa?”

“Yes…well, no. Maybe not _hammered_.” He raised his eyebrows playfully. “Buzzed and tipsy a few times though. I’ve only been of age the past year.”

He was laughing again but not meanly. She supposed he’d gone out and got hammered as soon as he was of age. Actually, he’d probably managed that _before_ he was of age like most teens. _Sansa Stark, you are no rebel, that’s for sure_.

“I never was one for breaking their rules,” she said, looking down at her lap and feeling embarrassed.

“Hey,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “That’s fine. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You’re your own person and there’s no hard and fast rules about what you’re _supposed_ to have done by the time you’re nineteen. Anyone who says otherwise is full of shit.”

“Thanks. I’m tipsy now anyway.”

“Maybe teetering towards hammered even.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

As if to prove the point, she started giggling against her will. Gods, she was a mess. She was supposed to be checking up on him, not acting so silly.

But when she got herself under control once more, he was smiling at her and not looking remotely troubled like he had in the ballroom earlier. So, maybe she was helping in some way.

They spoke about the job he was going to be starting next month at a small marketing firm that Arthur had steered him towards. His step-father had guided him towards his university and now he was guiding Jon towards a specific job. She didn't think Jon resented it but maybe he had other ideas. He seemed a little indifferent about the job anyway. 

"I have no right to complain. It's a decent entry-level job and I'm lucky they wanted me." Sansa didn't think it was mere luck. Jon had done very well at university and he was very bright. "Anyway, I'm glad to have a job waiting but I'd originally thought about leaving Starfall and starting out somewhere new...sort of."

"New?"

"Yeah. Well, I had considered Kings Landing because it's the capital and there's a ton of potential opportunities there but I'd also thought of maybe here."

"Winterfell?" 

"Maybe." Could he really be considering moving here? Could there really be some hope of...something? "But then, I know Mum would be upset if I did and it's not easy moving away from everything you know either, you know?"

"That's true."

All the same, she was suddenly and intently hoping there'd be some amazing job available here and Jon _would_ make that move. Maybe Lyanna and Arthur might even decide to move North again at some point so Jon wouldn't feel bad over leaving them behind. 

The idea brought family back to mind and she decided maybe it was safe to broach another matter, hoping tonight's unpleasantness wouldn't effect his interest in moving North. 

“I’m sorry about what Grandpa said, Jon. I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt you.”

“Don’t be sorry and it’s okay,” he said, grasping the second bottle, the one she'd abandoned for the vodka, and taking a long swig. “I know how he feels about my father and I can’t blame him. If I’m ever a father or if…” his eyes flitted over to her, “…if anyone I love was taken advantage of like that, I would feel the same way.”

Could he hear the way her heart was beating against her ribcage after he’d looked at her and said, ‘anyone I love?’

No.

Was she squealing internally?

Yes!

“He still shouldn’t have said it.”

He shrugged and a period of silence fell. Tipsy, buzzed or hammered, Sansa could feel the alcohol thrumming through her. Her fingertips felt tingly. Her muscles were relaxed and loose. The nervousness she’d felt earlier around Jon had eased. Not disappeared but eased. She felt languid. She wondered if he’d mind if she napped on him again when they made their inevitable way back to the house later. Who was driving again? Thank gods, it wasn’t her.

“I’ve got a questionable choice in mind,” she murmured, watching the water swirling in the corner with steam rising up off of it.

“Oh yeah?”

“I want to soak my tired feet in that hot tub.”

He playfully rolled his eyes. “That's hardly questionable but easily accommodated.”

He rose and grabbed three clean towels from the courtesy rack, placed two on the hard, damp floor for them to sit on beside the hot tub and instructed her to take off her sneakers and socks while he grabbed their drinks.

She moaned when she dipped her feet in the hot water.

“That good, huh?”

“That good.”

“I’m jealous.”

“Then, join me.”

He considered for only a few seconds before pulling off his boots and socks and rolling up his trousers. He scooted a bit closer as he eased his feet in. He made the same moaning sound as her but it sounded sexy coming from him. Feeling flustered by it, she started working on her second mini.

Silence fell again, the steady churning of the waters lulling them both into a comfortable state of just existing. Their thighs were touching where they sat. He had leaned back and one hand was bracing on the concrete a few inches behind her. She could still catch traces of his cologne even over the chlorine. She could feel the heat of him. Her whole right side was warmer because he was there. But the alcohol gave her enough detachment to make these observations without freaking out over them.

“I met him a few months ago.”

The unexpected words took a few beats longer than normal to register. “You mean your father?”

“Yeah. Mum and Arthur know obviously but I've not told anyone up here." No, she didn't think he'd want to discuss it with his uncles or their grandfather. He'd not even told Robb. But he was telling her. "He actually lives in Kings Landing but he came to Dorne wanting to meet me.”

“So, he knew about you all along?”

“He did. He stayed away after…my mum was seventeen when they met, Sansa. She was doing a work study course one summer at KLU to get early university credit. He was the guest lecturer. He was also married and older than I am now.”

“Gods. I didn’t know that.”

“I’m sure your parents don’t like thinking about it. He could’ve faced prosecution for being with my mum that way. He should’ve. Grandpa and your dad are still pissed that he didn’t.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“The family’s loaded. My grandfather, his father, was an important man in Kings Landing back then. He's dead now but they got it swept under the rug and my mum was brought back home by your dad to have me. My father and Arthur were once friends actually. The stuff with my mum ended that.”

“They met through your father?”

“Yeah, as crazy as it sounds. He thought she was just some kid taking the class that my father was helping out. When he realized more was going on, he called my father out on it. Anyway, Arthur started calling her after I was born to see how she was doing and check on me. He just wanted to be a friendly ear for her to bend if needed and she needed that. She was eighteen and a single mum and, while the family had all welcomed her back and loved me, it wasn’t easy for her living with our grandparents again after everything.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Sansa couldn’t even imagine being in her aunt’s place. For all her talk of being a grown woman, part of her still quailed at the thought of facing her parents under such circumstances.

“They talked off and on over the next few years when I was little and eventually their long-distance friendship changed. Grandpa wasn’t happy about it the first time Arthur came up here to visit, I’ve been told, but they get along well now.”

“Gods. I knew Aunt Lyanna was young when she had you but I never knew…”

She stopped talking as she watched his chest rising and falling, heaving with emotions he was trying to control. She reached for his hand. He gripped it like a life line, holding it in his lap until his breathing evened out again.

“What was it like? Meeting him?”

“Strange but mostly anticlimactic. I had all these ideas in my head about what it might be like, dramatic shit straight out of a soap opera. But he was just there and it wasn’t anything much. We talked some. He’s divorced. I’ve got two half-siblings he said he’d introduce me to if I wanted to meet them. I’m not sure if I want to or not."

"That would be surreal to suddenly have siblings when you hadn't before."

"Exactly. I do envy you all having each other but it's something you've grown up knowing.”

“I’m not sure I’d envy us too much,” she said, hoping to bring a little levity back.

“I did though as a kid when I'd visit. As much as you tease each other, I can see how much you all love one another.”

“Like when Arya rolls her eyes at Slowpoke Sansa and Robb yanks on my braids and calls me Pippi Longstocking?”

“It’s still love, Sansa. The love in your family is easy to see.” 

"They're your family, too."

"I know but..." He raised his hand to cup her cheek as he searched her eyes like he was looking for something.

_What are you looking for? Is it something I can give you? Something I might have?_

He broke away again, nodding to himself uncertainly. “Robb raves about your art to me almost as much as your dad does to Mum.”

“He does?” If she wasn't already flushing from his touch, she'd be flushing now. She’d never thought Robb paid much attention at all.

“Yeah, he does. He should tell you but maybe that’s hard for big brothers to do. I wouldn’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry my mother wasn’t able to have any more kids with Arthur. I’m pretty sure they wanted to but it never happened. They’re happy though and I hope I’m not too much of a disappointment.”

“You could never be a disappointment, Jon.” 

Stricken at the thought of him even half-heartedly feeling that way about himself, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, right above his beard, the whiskers lightly teasing her bottom lip but the rest of his skin soft and warm.

His eyes widened when she did. What had she done?! 

Trying to act composed again even as her heart thundered away, she laid her head on his shoulder as if it was merely a platonic, familial sign of affection when she felt anything but that way about it.

Maybe he didn’t feel that way about it either.

“Sansa…”

His voice was a rasp and left her more lightheaded than the alcohol. If she was in the hot tub, she probably couldn’t turn any pinker.

She raised her head off his shoulder to look him in the eye. His face was close to hers. His eyes were darker than usual and he was making a study of her mouth. She thought he might like to kiss her. She should like to be kissed. She didn't want to think about it too much but she wasn't wired that way. She was always _thinking_. And her nerves were back in force. 

And while he continued to stare at her, he didn't move. The tension was so thick and it spurred her into action. 

“Time for some more questionable choices, I think,” she declared before standing up abruptly.

He seemed to shake himself out of some sort of reverie as he looked questionably at her. But he gulped audibly, even over the sound of the hot tub, when she started unzipping her dress. 

“Sansa?” He looked around nervously at their surroundings. For all their current privacy, this was not a private place.

“I feel like a dip. Need to clear my head of the booze. Plus, that pool is too still. It's a crime for a pool to look so still and lonely."

"Sansa?! Are you shitting me?!" He probably thought this was either a practical joke or that he needed to seek some emergency psychological assistance for her ASAP. She couldn't blame him. 

"No and I don't have a swimsuit hiding under here either so don't judge me for the fact my underwear doesn't match. I was in a hurry to get ready for a hike this morning. And I’ll point out that this is perfectly in keeping with teenage behavior so it's my last year to engage in it...so there!” She playfully stuck out her tongue at him to emphasize the point when she was down to her bra and panties.

His mouth was hanging open as he nodded slowly, clearly gobsmacked. His eyes weren't quite managing to stay above her shoulders either. Why should that make her feel invincible somehow when in other circumstances and with other men it would make her want to hide herself? Gods, she was losing it. 

_It's just this night, just the drinks, just him._

That would be her mantra that made this all seem as lighthearted as she was trying to pretend it was. 

She whirled and ran the handful of feet across the concrete to the main pool, jumping in with a great splash without looking back. She broke the surface a handful of seconds later, gasping for air from the shock of the cooler water after the hot tub.

She started cackling when she heard his answering splash, every sound magnified and reverberating in their little isolated chamber as she attempted to wipe the water from her eyes. She said a pray of thanks that her mascara was waterproof.

“Holy fuck! This is freezing!” he yelped when his head rose above the water again. “How can you stand it?!”

“Chillier than what you’re used to in Dorne, is it?” she teased.

“A bit!” he shouted sarcastically.

By some unspoken agreement, they swam towards each other, both automatically treading water when they were face to face. She glanced down just once to confirm he was still wearing his boxers. _Curiosity, meet cat_. 

It was hard to tell with the pile of clothes he’d hurriedly yanked off by the hot tub but he was still covered as expected. This hadn't turned into some B-grade porno...yet.

She was catching her breath from her laughter and couldn't think of anything cool or clever to say. Apparently, her bravado was fading though because she went casting about for _something_ to say. "This is the deep end." _Well_ , _that's obvious, Sansa._

"We're in over our heads, aren't we?"

_Oh my. That came out husky. And yes, I think we are._

"We could go to the shallow end. I can swim but I'm not the strongest of swimmers." 

"Then, why'd you jump in?"

"I wanted to." _I wanted to do something crazy. I want to do something even crazier. I want...you._

Her breath hitched when he drew a little nearer, offering his arm for her to grasp as he kept kicking his legs beneath the surface. "I won't let you drown. I worked as a lifeguard a couple of summers as a teen." 

"I know. Our parents talk," she reminded him while accepting his aid. Even in the water, his flesh felt warm. 

He snickered. "Very true. I like that we're talking now."

"Me, too."

"I've missed you. I was thinking of you and my last trip here when Mum told me about the reunion."

"You were?" _He did?!_ "I've missed you, too," she said, trying very hard _not_ to sound like a squealing fangirl. "Did you ever save anyone when you were a lifeguard?"

"No, it was pretty tame at the pool I worked at. Mostly, I yelled at kids to not run and worked on my tan." _I'll bet you looked hot while doing it._ "All those rescue courses turned out to be for naught."

"They may come in handy someday but you never got to perfect your rescue breathing technique?" 

His eyes immediately fell to her mouth. "Not yet."

 _Oh shit._

Here in the deep end, they were working to keep their heads above water. In the shallow end, they could stand and maybe do things they couldn't do as easily when they were busy treading water. 

"I'm getting used to the temperature now. It's almost bearable." He promptly made an over-the-top, animated shuddering motion, letting his teeth chatter for effect.

"You're a goof," she laughed, splashing him.

"Yeah, maybe I am. The cold must be effecting my mental state." The arm she'd been grasping tentatively wrapped around her body instead. "Maybe we need to warm up some."

"Maybe," she said as her pulse started pounding with anticipation. "There's a hot tub over there."

"Yes, there is." 

But Sansa didn't believe even the hot tub could compare with the heat and tension building between them as they silently treaded water with Jon's arm around her. For several seconds, they stayed that way, staring at each other with Jon's arm around her, waiting to see who would break first and make a move.

Neither would get the chance as it turned out. 

Just as he started to lean in (and Sansa was 80% sure he was leaning in and not just continuing to tread water), Arya's voice echoed shrilly in the emptiness. 

“What in seven hells are you two doing?!”

Sansa kicked out wildly, flailing her arms and legs as she put space between them just as Jon did the same. She thought her foot made contact with his knee. It was something hard anyway and he gave a pained grunt and gasped, "Fucking hell," under his breath. 

Had they really been that close to each other? What had it looked like to Arya? And had they really been that close to something else?

"Sorry," Sansa murmured to Jon who was still grimacing before turning to face Arya. "We're swimming.” She sounded amazingly composed considering. “What are you doing here?"

"Mum came up looking for you, Sansa, and then Robb and your mum were asking about you, Jon. I told them I'd find you. Why are you swimming?"

"Because we wanted to. Wanna join us?”

She was amused by Jon’s none-too-subtle look of annoyance that he did his best to banish. He didn’t want any other company joining them then, not even Arya.

Well, she didn’t exactly want company either but they were caught and who would ever understand what was going on between them tonight? She didn't think Arya would. She wasn’t sure she did either but she was fairly certain she wasn't alone in her feelings at least. 

“You’re not wearing swimsuits.”

“We’re expressing our disdain for them,” Sansa told her sister haughtily before she burst into giggles.

“That and we’re hammered and making questionable choices tonight,” Jon added with a grin that was just for her.

“You’re both weird,” Arya told them before shucking off her shoes and jeans and diving in to join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I have a thing for Sansa getting a little wild around water? Maybe. We'll say it's her Tully genes making her half a fish.  
> And do you think Sansa accidently kicked Jon's knee or something else? 😬 😇
> 
> I know Arya (unintentionally) interrupted things here but she won't be interrupting next chapter so hope you'll stick around for that. I'll try to update again in the next week.🤞


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After returning to the house and as their parents prepare to stay up late and play cards, Sansa and Jon run a load of clothes in the wash. Okay, maybe that's not all they're doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I’m as surprised as you are that I got this done so quick 🤷♀️

They were discovered by more than Arya before long. Apparently, the whereabouts of Jon and Sansa had become a hot topic of the dance over the course of their ninety-minute absence. The implication of that amongst the family wouldn’t really hit her until much later.

Arthur was understandably perplexed as to why they’d decided to swim in their underwear at the hotel pool but, as soon as Jon mentioned alcohol, he’d shook his head and admonished his step-son not to be encouraging such behavior in his younger cousins though it was clear he was more amused than anything.

Bran and Rickon had caught wind of the fun they were missing and turned up right on their uncle’s heels. They were all set to join in, even though Sansa, Jon and Arya were preparing to climb out, when their mother arrived and resolutely forbade any such thing.

A chill rippled through the humid space when she told them, “I think it’s time we all go home for the night.”

Catelyn Stark was a loving mother but there were plenty of times during her childhood that even a girl as well-behaved as Sansa had felt like she was walking on eggshells in the her presence. She felt that way now.

Was she merely embarrassed? Annoyed that her daughters had been part of something that the entire extended family would laugh about for eons once it was known? Or was it something else?

She’d rolled her eyes but in a resigned manner when she’d thought it was Arya or Jon who had started things but, when she learned otherwise thanks to Arya’s unabashed recount of how shocked she was that _Sansa_ would do such a thing, the eye rolling ceased and her brow became furrowed. A tight little ball of unease formed. 

_Yes, Mother. I stripped down to my knickers during our family reunion and got Jon to join me in the pool. You never made a specific rule against that._

Regardless, whether it was the alcohol or other things effecting her, Sansa refused to be cowed by a look from her mother tonight. She was no longer a little girl even if her choices might be deemed questionable at best.

Since her bra and panties were soaked, Sansa slipped into the changing room to remove them, dry off and put her dress back on. Something about being bare underneath her dress made her feel sensual, alive and delectably naughty when she rejoined Jon. 

He held out a plastic bag for her wet things. It appeared he'd tossed his boxers in there. They shared a private and playfully chagrined chuckle together over the ruckus they’d caused. “I think we’ve made a spectacle of ourselves.” 

“I think I don’t care." 

“Are we continuing to get hammered and make questionable choices the rest of the weekend then?”

“Maybe so,” she said, batting her eyes at him before grasping the bag of wet underthings to take with her. Since when had she turned into such a flirt? “I’ll run a load of wash at home and toss these in.”

“Thanks.” He gave a swift look over his shoulder where others were waiting on them before turning back to her. “I could keep you company while it runs…if you want.”

“I’d like that.”

He didn't want their time to end yet. Neither did she. Who they were to each other when he'd arrived here yesterday afternoon had changed. Who they were to each other when she’d entered this place had shifted. A bond had been forged and deepened. Something tenuous and sweet was blossoming. _There's no going back._ Or so she hoped.

The ride back to the house was quietly tense. Robb was one of the night's designated drivers and he was ferrying his mother and sisters back home. The three of them were in the backseat of his SUV and, for once, she was glad her brother had a lead foot. Jon was riding back with his parents, the same way he’d arrived. She’d wanted to ride next to him and maybe nap on him again but, when everyone was sorting out who would ride with who, neither of them were consulted and neither argued. They’d be at the house together and that was what mattered to Sansa. He wasn’t leaving until tomorrow night and they weren’t finished with spending time together tonight. Hours and hours of time. 

_Look where we were 24 hours ago. Where might be we be in another 24?_

But the weight of her mother’s silence and questioning looks grew oppressive. That tight little ball of discomfort was getting bigger so Sansa asked Robb to turn on the radio. The precious first born, as sensitive to their mother's moods as Sansa was, shot her a warning glance through the rearview mirror. Sweet Jeyne didn’t see any of it though and she clicked it on. Sansa felt a smirk dying to spring forth as soon as she heard the song.

_“...I forgot my shirt at the water's edge_

_The moon is low tonight_

_Nightswimming deserves a quiet night..."_

Her mother huffed, clearly angered at the anonymous DJ for tormenting her with some dreadful song to remind her of her daughter’s shameful exhibition during the family reunion, for gods' sake.

Arya was not tormented or angered in the least. She sang along. Sansa did, too.

_“ I'm not sure all these people understand_

_It's not like years ago_

_The fear of getting caught_

_The recklessness and water_

_They cannot see me naked_

_These things, they go away_

_Replaced by everyday”_

Would anything feel like ‘everyday’ again to her after tonight? Her young heart was full of songs and hope that it wouldn’t. How could it when he’d be sitting up with her tonight?

And when their mother started laughing softly underneath her breath at her daughters and their madness, that tight little ball of worry went away. 

* * *

Desire was nearly akin to a slippery slope, Sansa was discovering. It could sneak up on you, carry you away, swell and throb and consume without warning...that is, when you were truly ready to open yourself to it.

No, she wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the feeling. She’d felt those giddy stirrings in her tummy, that tightening in the loins, the tingling ache that left her feeling feverish many times since puberty. Unfortunately, she’d never experienced any of it all that deeply with another person.

None of those sloppy kisses or adolescent gropings in parked cars back in school had left her blood singing out for more the way her poolside escapades with Jon had. She’d always had one eye on the dashboard clock back then, too worried over her curfew or someone coming upon them to enjoy it and those boys had been nearly as inexperienced as she was. Mostly, those make-out sessions had felt like a task to perform or rite of passage to achieve and, while they were not arduous or horrible, they were just kind of _there_ for her and any feeble stirrings they produced would abate like the fading taillights of those boys’ cars when she was standing on her parents’ porch again. 

Many of her girlfriends had giggled over those fumbles and kisses though while Sansa had only smiled and said it was ‘nice’ and wondered if there was something wrong with her or if they were secretly faking their enthusiasm.

_Was it me? Was it those boys? Was it just our youth or maybe I wasn’t really ready yet?_

She wasn’t sure.

If she wasn’t ready then, she’d definitely not been ready of Harry. 

New to university, she’d been flattered by his attentions, a graduate student, handsome and witty. His seemingly debonair ways and all the charming little places he said he was dying to take her that he claimed he’d never taken anyone else felt fairytale perfect at first. 

It was all hot air of course.

Four dates along when he’d got no further than kissing and a hand under her shirt, he’d grown blunter about his expectations in a _mature_ relationship and not bothered to hide his shock or refrain from saying something on the crude side when she’d admitted her lack of experience. He’d said it was fine though and they could wait. But apparently one more month of waiting was enough in his opinion and he’d grown curter and more cutting in his remarks after that until one night he’d said if he was going to blow a hundred dragons on a fancy dinner for her, the least she could do was blow him. Sansa had finally forced herself to remove those rose-colored glasses at that point and acknowledge he truly was the utter prick Robb had named him. 

But now? With Jon? There was no question that her desires and longings ran as deep as any woman’s when he joined her on the way to the laundry room. Yeah, he was just wearing joggers and a nicely fitted tee but his curls were still damp and his eyes still spoke of unspoken things. His joggers hugged his ass nicely, too.

For herself, she was wearing an oversized rugby jersey which was what she'd grown used to sleeping in at the dorms. She didn't consider it the least bit sexy even if the v-neck showed some skin and it stopped mid-thigh with Sansa's long legs. 

_I mean, it's not horrible,_ she decided on second thought when she caught Jon giving her the up and down. _The panties are black but they're also cotton._

Before settling on the jersey, she'd scoured her lingerie drawer trying to find that perfect combination of alluring but respectable. Turned out she did not possess that mystical item and the pink unicorn pajamas she'd had forever and the flannels she wore to bed in the dead of winter were a definite no. And while there was that skimpy little nightie and thong set she'd purchased on a whim when she'd thought that _maybe_ it would happen with Harry, it would've been the opposite of subtle...not to mention her freaking parents and grandparents were in the house with them! 

“Can I help?” he asked when he saw the basket tucked against her side. 

_It’s just a load of clothes._ She’d been taught how to do laundry when she was nine. Strangely enough, none of her other siblings had learned that young…or been so faithful about getting it done.

Frowning slightly at the thought, she said, “Sure. Could you grab that bottle of detergent from the top shelf for me?” Her delicate things needed delicate treatment.

 _And if I were wearing my delicate things,_ _they’d be in danger of a drenching,_ she thought when Jon reached over his head to grab the indicated bottle and his shirt rode up revealing a swath of his abs and belly and that barely-there trail of hair below his navel that lead…downward. 

She licked her lips without meaning to before busying herself with the clothes to avoid being obvious. _You saw him in nothing but his boxers in the pool! He had his arm around you! He leaned in!_

_And who’s to say I wasn’t turned on then?_

Oh, she had been but they’d been in the water in a place where realistically she’d known they might be discovered. Now, they were at the house and all her desires seemed to not only be coming back in full force but multiplying. 

“Here you go.” Did he purposefully brush her fingers with his as he handed it over? Did she imagine that hungry look? 

“Thanks.” She dumped in the clothes including their wet underthings and turned the knob, wondering how to prolong this little meeting. Obviously, camping out by her mother’s washing machine wasn’t that exciting. “Want a drink?” she said, tilting her head towards the kitchen. 

They'd already had their share of drinks and she still had a nice buzz going but he nodded and followed her the short distance to the kitchen. 

Sansa pulled out a bottle of the Garnacha that Arthur and Lyanna had brought up from Dorne as a hostess gift, knowing her mother was partial to it. It’d been opened last night and Sansa told herself a glass or two wouldn’t be missed that terribly. 

“There’s beer in the fridge if you prefer or liquor in the hutch over there.”

“You drank the stout with me. I’ll drink the wine with you.”

“I took a sip of the stout and damn near gagged.”

“So you did,” he laughed as she pulled down two wine glasses. 

“Are you hungry?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder at him while in the midst of reaching for the glasses. 

His eyes were fixed somewhere lower than her face. _Like my ass._

“Uh…no,” he said, his cheeks growing pinkish as he looked away.

_Oh, I think you are._

It took all her control to appear poised as she set down the glasses and poured the wine.

They both leaned against their closest bit of counter across from each other, sipping their wine and chatting nonchalantly. Neither of them were very focused on what they were saying though. The atmosphere was too charged.

“Oh...are you two still up?” Arthur said, coming in fifteen minutes later. 

"Yeah, Dad." 

"Not all tuckered out from your swim?" 

He started chuckling to himself completely oblivious to the little round of eye fucking he'd brought to a halt. At least, it'd seemed like eye fucking to her. 

“Yes, were you wanting something to eat, Uncle Arthur?”

“Gods, no. Too much of that for me already tonight,” he groaned, rubbing a hand across his chest. “I was wondering if your mum kept any antacids around? I should know better than to mix alcohol and onions at this point but I forgot to pack the antacids.”

“You mean Mum forgot to pack them for you,” Jon said wryly, appearing unfazed by their company. 

“Well...yeah. Don't know what I'd do without my lady," he agreed, giving them the brilliant smile of a man in love. It made Sansa's heart nearly melt at the sweetness of it.

She went up to her parents’ room to find the sodium bicarbonate for him and, when she returned, her parents and Lyanna had joined Arthur and Jon. Her father was setting out cards on the table as her mother pulled out some cheese and another bottle of wine. 

Vaguely, she recalled different occasions of her parents having her grandparents or friends over and sitting up late playing cards when she was a girl. She remembered them doing that with Arthur and Lyanna when they’d come to drop off Jon before their cruise when she’d been ten and decided to ignore him. Her father and uncle had both been occasional smokers in those days. She’d woke up around 1AM from a bad dream and wandered downstairs for a drink to find the adults all sitting around the table laughing over their cards, her mother and aunt holding wine glasses and the acrid smell of cigarettes hanging in the air. It’d seemed like such a grownup thing to her at the time. 

_If Jon found a job up here and his parents moved back, the four of them could play cards together more often._

“It’s getting late but we’re all feeling like night owls. We were going to play Canasta,” her father said, “unless you kids want to join us?”

Canasta sounded a little _too_ grown up for Sansa’s tastes…plus, she had other ideas. 

“No, that’s alright, Dad. I’m not much for cards. I was thinking of maybe watching a movie for a bit while I wait on the laundry to run.” 

She looked towards Jon but he was keeping his mouth closed. Sansa saw her mother’s eyes flicker to the two wine glasses on the counter but she said nothing. 

“I’m going to check on those clothes now,” she said to no one a few minutes later as the parents were taking their seats. 

Her eyes met Jon’s and he nodded slowly before she left the room. 

Her mother’s older model washing machine had reached the spin cycle, making its gods-awful noises like always. Except tonight the steady thumping made Sansa think of a headboard beating against a wall _. Oh gods,_ she thought, stifling a moan at the image. 

Her ears strained for any sound of Jon coming to join her. She was desperate for him. Her skin felt like it was stretched too tight and her heart was beating wildly when she made out the sound of his footfalls approaching her from behind. It was like a building thunderhead on the move, closing in as she waited for the crack and rumble and then the sweet release of the rain. 

“That’s quite a racket.”

“It is,” she said, not daring to face him yet. 

“Is it almost done?”

“Few more minutes. We could go up to my room and select a movie while it finishes.”

“Your room?” he questioned, placing one hand on the washing machine beside her, partially caging her between it and his body. She could feel him exhaling on her shoulder. 

“Yeah. They won’t disturb us with their game up there. Unless you'd rather watch down here..." _where it's safer._

She turned to face him then, both of them intimately close in the confined space of the laundry. She could feel the vibrations of the machine winding down like a jet engine against her backside. She stared at him, their noses inches apart as she tried to convey what she wanted, what she needed and that she'd need him to understand that it might alter as they went along with a look. 

She highly doubted her face was capable of all that but he licked his lips and tentatively placed his other hand on her hip, his throat bobbing when he said, "Your room is fine with me." 

They climbed the back staircase in silence. At the top, one would turn left towards the master suite and her father’s office or right to the other bedrooms. They turned right. Robb didn’t live here anymore. Their grandparents were in his old room. Hopefully, their grandfather’s hangover wouldn’t be too severe come morning. 

They passed Arya’s room. A light was visible under the door but it was quiet. She probably had on her headphones like usual. Her little brothers’ rooms appeared dark. Jon’s room and the one his parents were using were past Sansa’s. 

They stopped at her door and she placed her hand on the knob. 

“What’d you want to watch?” he murmured quietly, mindful of others sleeping nearby as the warmth of his breath tickled her earlobe.

She turned around to face him. He was so close. He had her between himself and something solid yet again and she liked it. She liked it very much. Her control was unraveling like a loose thread getting snagged on something and yanked.

“I don’t really want to watch a movie,” she told him, daring to lay one hand on his chest. She could feel his heart beating, as quick a tempo as her own.

At what seemed like a glacial pace, his hand rose up, caressing her cheek and sliding into her hair to hold her steady, neither of them breaking eye contact when he said, “Thank, gods,” before surging forward to capture her lips with his.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics from Nightswimming by REM.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passion breaks free before all hell breaks loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So about that Minor Character Death tag...I've added a couple of tags to go with it *hides behind hands*

His eyes were like liquid onyx when he pulled back from that first kiss, as breathless as she was but with a faint line of worry marring his brow. “I didn’t know if you might…”

She nodded, nearly laughing in her joy and understanding his fears completely. “I wasn’t sure if you…”

Their mouths crashed together again before she could finish the sentence as they stumbled through the door, closing it harder than intended behind them. They both jumped at the sound like guilty children and then made shushing noises at each other which only made it harder to be quiet. Sansa maintained enough presence of mind to lock her door before she was back in his arms and giving herself over to this completely.

Only a bedside lamp was on. They were cocooned in its warm, yellow glow. If the pool deck had felt private and intimate in a sense, this was unquestionably more so. They kissed hungrily, then tenderly and then hungrily again, their muffled moans and gasps for breath only adding to their fervor. The kissing went on and on with Jon’s arms around her waist and hers wrapped around his neck. She tasted the wine on his tongue as he explored hers.

"Wait," she said several minutes later, holding up her hand. "Too much to drink." He looked horrified and started stammering apologies until she explained. "No, no. I'm not saying that. I just need to pee. I could also use some water. There's bottles in that mini-fridge there. I kept it in my dorm but brought it home for summer."

"Oh right! Of course. I think we could both use some water," he said, visibly relieved. 

She was grateful to have her own bathroom and, when she came back out, Jon was sipping a bottle of water with a second one sat out by the bed and staring at a couple of the pieces she'd felt proud enough of to pin to her corkboard. 

"These are really good, Sansa."

"Thanks." She took the water bottle from him and took a long sip. "They were for a project for one of my courses. We were supposed to design logos for two different made-up products."

"I love them. You've got so much talent."

Well, didn't that make her feel giddy? "Thank you." She set the nearly empty bottle down and lightly twined her fingers with his. "So, where were we?" 

He grinned, pulling her back to him as they resumed kissing. 

She loved his kisses. He wasn't the first skilled kisser she'd kissed but his were different somehow, ignited something in her that no other kisses had. They filled her heart with contentment but left her body craving more. 

Before long, it felt like her knees were buckling. _Oh look, a most convenient place to sit,_ she thought with devilish delight as she drew Jon down beside her on her bed.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said breathily when his kiss-swollen lips moved away from hers, blazing a trail along her jaw.

“Kissing your cousin?” he rumbled in her ear.

“No…well, yes. But I’ve never even had a boy in my room here at home before this. If a boy came over to study or watch TV when I was younger, we had to stay downstairs.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear about these other boys,” he said teasingly. His fingers caressed her sides just so, tickling her until she was quaking with suppressed giggles. “And I’m not a boy, I’m a man.” She smirked at him making a point of that after she’d done the same earlier regarding being a woman.

“I won't argue. Anyway, swimming in my underwear, kissing my cousin, who is assuredly not a boy but a man, and inviting him up to my room; it’s a night of firsts.” _Do you understand what I’m telling you?_

Maybe, maybe not.

He simply chuckled before continuing his attentions to her earlobe and then her neck, lightly sucking at her pulse point. She threw her head back, loving the sensation as the hand he’d had at her side climbed upward. He stopped just short of cupping her breast. “Is this alright, Sansa?” Even after several drinks, Jon was looking for consent to proceed, something Harry never would've done. 

“Yes,” she replied dreamily. Everything he was doing was alright. "I want your hands on me but..." She shifted and tugged at her jersey, silently encouraging him to touch her without the jersey in the way. He made a sound that was suspiciously close to a whimper. She loved it almost as much as the feel of his rougher hand cupping her softer breast, his thumb teasing her nipple.

They laid back on the mattress as the making-out progressed with their legs tangled together. There was soon no mistaking his erection pressed against her thigh. Curious, she dropped a hand between them and palmed him through his joggers.

“Fuck.” She liked the way that came out in a gush, like he couldn’t control his reaction to her touch.

She stroked him once…twice...and again, watching his eyes roll back and growing more sure of herself. “I think you like this." 

She thought she might try touching him without the pants in the way just like he was touching her breast but his response distracted her. 

“You think right and I’m damned glad it survived the pool incident.”

“The pool? The water wasn’t _that_ cold.” 

“I wasn’t talking about the water temperature. I was referring to you kicking me like a mule right in the dick when Arya surprised us.”

“Kicked you like a…oh gods!” She started giggling before immediately clamping her mouth shut to stop. It wasn’t funny. She’d hurt him. “I’m so sorry, Jon. I didn’t realize.”

“You said sorry. I thought you did realize.” He was grinning at her again despite the topic being his past pain. 

“Well, it was hard and I thought it must be your knee or…” She started blushing. He’d been hard. Even with the water being chilly, he’d been hard as he’d held her to him in the pool as he leaned in before Arya came along. “You must’ve been even more annoyed by Arya’s interruption than I was.”

“I'll say. And if you keep stroking me like that, I’ll be in danger of making a mess in these. I didn’t pack all that much.”

Her answering laughter turned into a gasp when he unexpectedly rolled her to her back with him half on top. He stared at her for several beats before gently cupping her face and running his fingers through her hair, his eyes dark but warm. "You're so beautiful," he murmured.

"So are you," she whispered back. 

"Can I kiss you here?" His lips brushed her collar bone, a featherlight kiss.

"Yes." 

"And here?" He was peppering her chest with kisses.

"Yes."

He gave her breast a gentle squeeze. "How about here?"

Her thighs involuntarily squeezed together as a pulse of longing rocked through her. "Please," she whined unashamedly. 

Together, they pushed her jersey up to expose her breasts. Maybe it would've made her slightly uncomfortable if she was stone-cold sober but the slight detachment of the alcohol had melted away her little insecurities. And Jon was gazing at her like she was a work of art. Needless to say, that helped. He even groaned as his eyes drank her in and she wasn't sure he was aware he'd done it until she bit her lip to keep from giggling over it. 

Yes, a couple of other guys had had their hands on her tits but none of them had stared at them with such...reverence? Slowly, he cupped one as she raised a hand to caress his face. "It's okay," she assured him again when his eyes bounced from her breasts to her face. 

Lightly, he massaged first one and then the other, watching with a pleased grin when her nipples tightened in response. It was like he was getting acquainted with them one on one which sounded hilarious in her head but it was sweet, too. Deep down, she knew his intention, his ambition was her pleasure. 

He wrapped his free arm around her, dragging her closer before lowering his mouth to her flesh.

"Oh gods..." 

She knew she needed to be quiet. The house was full of people. She shared a wall with Bran. Their parents were still awake downstairs. But it was hard to be quiet. And Jon seemed intent on pulling breathless mewls and pleas from her with every swipe of his tongue. 

Helpless to it, she writhed in his arms and muffled her cries as best she could. And when his hand disappeared from her breast only to slide inside her panties with his mouth still covering one nipple, gently suckling, she saw stars and let go of the loudest moan that would've mortified her...if not for the the thump and crack that interrupted the afterglow of her bliss. 

"Shh, it's nothing, sweetheart," he promised before sliding down far enough to kiss her navel as she gazed at him with heavily-lidded eyes. 

How could he be sure? He was right though she realized as she started to relax. It was nothing but the sounds of the old house settling in the night. How could he be more familiar with the sounds of this old house than her? 

Meanwhile...sweetheart?

_Am I your sweetheart? Can I always be?_

She wanted to believe that so much. Cousins getting together might be taboo in come circles but it wasn't impossible. It wasn't completely unheard of surely. 

_Getting ahead of yourself a little, aren't you?_ a wiggly worm of worry suggested. _What happens tomorrow when he leaves? There's been no declarations or promises made. What do you truly feel for for him beyond desire? What does he feel? What if..._

Alcohol and optimism quickly buried that worm back in the soil, banishing troublesome thoughts. He was here and he was hers tonight. The rest could be sorted out later.

She cupped his cheeks and made him look up at her. “Will you take your shirt off? I want to see you. I want to feel your skin against mine. Is that okay?”

“Anything you want from me is okay, Sansa.”

He tugged it over his head. He wasn’t all strained, dehydrated bodybuilder perfection. Sansa didn't find the look sexy anyway. But Jon's skin was soft and smooth except for a sprinkling of hair on his well-muscled chest and arms. He was beautiful, a beautiful soul and beautiful body, the most beautiful man to her eyes. 

They laid together for a time, chests pressed together while they kissed until her neck grew uncomfortable without the support of her pillow. She scooted up the bed, beckoning him to join her with a wave.

He had other plans. He leaned down slowly, methodically and wrapped a hand around her ankle. He lifted it off the bed just enough to place a kiss on it.

Her breath hitched as she said his name, “Jon.”

“I want to kiss you some more, Sansa. I want to kiss you lots of places.”

His dark look of desire sent another jolt of wantonness coursing through her blood and her wits scattered. She swallowed down her bit of nerves as she nodded, her entire face, neck and chest feeling several degrees warmer as his mouth made its way up her calf and then her thigh.

Not knowing what to do with her hands, she reached for his hair again, running her fingers through his messy curls.

“I like your hair. I remember dreaming of running my finger through it when you were seventeen and visited."

“You did?"

"Uh huh." _Did you think of me that way then? Even a little bit?_ She did not find the courage to ask that. 

"I love your beautiful red hair...and I'm hoping to seeing the rest of it," he finished wickedly. His nose nudged the top of her thigh right below her black panties. She lifted her hips and his hand brushed across her mound but he went no further. “Yes or no, Sansa?” he asked more seriously. She nodded. “I’d really like to hear a word, sweetheart.”

"Oh! Yes! Please, yes.” Gods, she sounded perfectly impatient. _I am!_

He didn't laugh though. He just hooked his fingers into the waist band of her panties and whisked them away, staring at her with the same adoration as he had earlier. "So beautiful, my sweet Sansa." 

_Your Sansa. I want to be your Sansa. I think I'll always be your Sansa...no matter what._

One whisper-soft kiss to her curls and she already felt like she was on the verge of shouting his name…and that was before he got serious.

“Jon. Gods, Jon.”

Tortuously slow and purposeful, he licked her folds until he settled at her clit, circling it over and over and over again until she feared her eyes would cross from the sensation.

As she started to squirm, so eager for more, he scooped his arms under her ass, heaving her towards him, bringing her pussy right to his face. His hands then settled at her hips, his shoulders wedging between her thighs as he encouraged her to relax with gentle kisses. She did and his kisses changed into licks and suckling, giving her folds attention before finding her clit again to tease with his tongue. He started fingering her as he licked, pumping quickly while never ceasing the delectable things he was doing with his mouth.

She bucked her hips in time with his movements. “Jon...oh fuck...don't stop."

She sounded like she was begging for her life. Maybe she was. She was getting so close. She could hear the wet sounds of it as he worked her up and worked her over. He mumbled something in reply to her plea and the vibration made her toes curl up. She savagely gripped the comforter to keep from tearing his hair out as her peak neared.

“Cum for me, Sansa,” he murmured, his eyes glued on her from between her legs and barely breaking his rhythm.

She did. Gods, did she ever. He'd already made her cum earlier and he'd just done it again. He'd made her cum harder than she'd ever imagined possible. She physically _ached_ from it all over but in an indescribably wonderful way. Was sex drunk a thing? Even if they'd not actually had sex? 

In the floaty haze that followed, he climbed up the bed to be beside her, folding her up against him and kissing her temple as her heart slowly started to beat at a more normal pace once more. She opened her eyes when he haphazardly wiped at his lips and grasped the second water bottle they'd left on the bedside table for a drink. He offered it to her and she was grateful, being parched from the heavy, open-mouthed breathing he'd caused and her moaning. She darted forward to kiss him when the bottle was empty again.

“That was…whoa."

"My ego's happily lapping that up."

"Men like having their egos stroked as much as boys, don't they?"

"Well, this man only does if it's also sincere."

"It's sincere. But speaking of lapping up..."

"You did not just say that."

He snickered as her face caught fire but she wasn't deterred. "Where’d you, um...you're really good at that," she said more than a touch leadingly.

“Are you going to be upset if I say I've had some practice at it?"

“Uh…I guess not considering I just reaped the benefits of your practice. I might even call it expertise.” 

"Expertise. I'm putting that on my résumé." They shared a laugh before he said, "I'm very glad I pleased you."

“You can say that again. It was another first for me tonight.”

"Wait...first time a man's gone down on you or first time you came from it?"

"Both."

“Knew that guy was a prick,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. 

“You mean Harry? Gods, no. Harry never got close to doing that.” She gave a shudder at the thought of sharing something so special with that guy. She wasn’t sure she could’ve allowed herself to be vulnerable for Harry that way even if he’d ever thought to try it. “He never got that close at all.”

Jon’s earlier smug look faded. “Sansa…are you...are you a virgin?”

“Yes,” she said softly, feeling vulnerable in a different way now. “But I wouldn’t mind another first tonight.” At least, she thought she might not mind. She felt like she might do anything with Jon tonight if he asked. 

"Shit." He sat up, raking his hands through his hair and said it again. "Shit, shit, shit."

Her stomach dropped. She shoved her jersey back down from where she'd still been mostly exposed. "Jon?" 

"I'm such a dumbass." His eyes flickered to her and back to his lap. "Such a fucking dumbass and an asshole." 

_For eating me out? For kissing me? For...what?!_

His lips were parted as his eyes met hers again, looking increasingly worried. His worried look worried her. 

_Please, don't pull away from me. Please. I don't know if my heart can stand it. If you're going to leave me tomorrow and not look back, can't you just pretend otherwise a little longer?_

“There aren’t any rules about what I’m supposed to have done by nineteen, remember?” she asked, barely holding it together enough to say the words. 

He realized then that his freak out was freaking her the fuck out...and hurting her. “Ah, Sansa. No, sweetheart, it's not like that." He held her face between his hands, cradling it and softly kissing her lips just once, enough for her heart to start beating again. "Of course not. I meant that when I said it earlier and I still do. I just didn't realize you hadn't and I should've or I shouldn't have assumed anyway." His hands dropped to his sides again. She missed them at once. "Sansa, I'll admit I'd been thinking about you when I came up here. When I saw you and you were so beautiful and all grown up and...but I didn’t expect anything to happen between us.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t go around taking girls’ virginity over weekend holidays on the regular or anything.”

What did that mean? Was he regretting it all now? Did he not want her if she was a virgin? Was this…

She sat up now, tears already blurring her vision. They'd be clogging her throat if she didn't sit up. “Are you saying this was just casual for you but you only feel bad because I'm a virgin? Are you going to blame the alcohol for this like you blamed it for the pool when your dad found us?”

“No. Sansa, no.” He grasped her wrist, probably sensing her increasingly desperate urge to bolt. “No, that’s not it. I meant that if I’d realized you were a virgin, we wouldn’t have gone so far so fast. It was fast anyway, I know, but now…”

The sharp dagger of heartache dulled somewhat. “I didn’t mind it being fast. I was right here with you. I could’ve said stop at any time. You asked for my consent more than once.”

He nodded, resting his forehead against hers. “But we both did drink a lot tonight and I don’t want to rush you into your first time. I don't want you to ever look back on tonight and feel like you were pressured. And considering everything, maybe we should wait for more.”

“Wait? For when? You’re leaving tomorrow night.”

“Yeah but I know my way back here." He took one of her hands in his and raised it to his lips for a kiss. "I know my way back here...if that's alright with you." 

They both smiled at each other then and her heartache had completely disappeared.

_I want you to be my first. Maybe I’m hoping you’ll be my only. I wouldn’t mind it being tonight even with our grandparents down the hall and our parents awake and playing cards downstairs._

And she wouldn’t mind. But she also knew they didn’t have to tonight. _“I know my way back here.”_ Wasn’t that a promising thing for him to say?

Before Sansa could decide what she wanted tonight for certain though, they heard voices outside her room and they both froze, holding onto each other tightly in the face of bumps in the night.

“It's just Mum and Arthur,” Jon whispered. “They’re probably going to bed.”

She nodded and clung to him, telling her wildly fluttering heart that they weren’t busted and, even if they were, they weren’t kids. Sure enough, she could hear Lyanna's voice though it was low. A little fissure of guilt washed over her. She didn't like hiding but she was glad Jon's mother couldn't possibly know what they'd been doing a short while ago or that he was even in here. 

_If anything serious is going to happen between us though, we’ll have to tell them all at some point._

But as fate would have it and most unfortunately, one of them would never know.

A sudden hard thump against the wall outside her bedroom made Sansa yelp at the same time Lyanna did. “Arthur? Arthur?!”

"Lyanna...my...it hurts..." her uncle groaned and they could hear a heavier sound like someone falling to their knees and collapsing. 

In one horrifying moment, every hair on Sansa’s body was standing on end.

“Ned! Ned! Help! Jon!”

The terror in Lyanna's voice was bone-chilling. Something was so wrong and that something was happening right outside Sansa's bedroom in the hallway.

Footsteps and then, "Lya! What happened?! Arthur...Cat, call an ambulance!”

"Daddy," Sansa whispered, only a tiny corner of her mind even cognizant that she'd spoken. Her daddy would fix it. He'd take care of things like he always did, wouldn't he? 

Her father's shouts were mingled with her aunt's pleading cries of “Arthur! Arthur! Please!”

_He was asking for antacids earlier while rubbing at his chest. He got winded on the hike this morning and had to sit down._

_Shut up! Shut up! Please, stop this!_

Like earlier when her grandfather had been drunk and grown crude about Jon’s biological father, Sansa felt small again. Even as she _knew_ , she didn't _want_ to know. Nothing bad was happening. It was a bad dream. She wouldn’t even mind the beautiful time with Jon being just a dream as well if this would go away. She wanted to hide in a corner, cover her ears and eyes and tell this horrible thing to go away. She didn’t want it. It couldn’t be real.

That was her instinct at that exact moment and she hated it almost as much as she hated what must be happening outside the bedroom door. It was not Jon's instinct though. He looked as frightened as she felt but his instinct was to act. He vaulted off the bed, tripping in his rush to reach the door before regaining his balance, cursing and no longer staying silent. 

“Jon?! JON! Where are you?!” his mother cried just then.

“I’m here, Mum! I’m…” He looked around, momentarily panicked that he’d answered. He was in her bedroom and only half dressed. Her panties were still lying on the floor somewhere. The room smelled of chlorine and musk. There was no believable explanation for it beyond what it was. But there was no running away and pretending either. 

“Sansa!” she heard her mother calling. The doorknob started rattling. There was no avoiding this any longer. 

Jon jerked the door open so fast her mother practically fell inside. He mumbled a sorry and rushed past his aunt to his mother, to his uncle and to his step-father. Sansa could only see Arthur's feet where he was lying in the hallway. 

“Help me roll him, Ned. I'll start chest compressions,” she heard Jon say a heartbeat later. 

_Yes, he took those courses to become a lifeguard. He’s going to save someone after all. Please, please, please. Please, save him._

“One, two, three…”

“Cat! Have you called them?!” her father shouted over Jon's counting.

She’d been frozen in the doorway from where she'd stumbled inside, her hand still clutching the doorknob. Her mouth hung open as she stared at Jon's shirt and Sansa's panties on the floor.

"Cat?!"

“I need your phone!” her mother snapped, forcing herself back to the emergency at hand.

Quickly and wordlessly, Sansa unlocked it, pressing the emergency call button but passing it to her mother. She didn’t trust herself enough to make sense. 

Her mother's voice was shaky, emotion threatening to overwhelm, but she managed to convey the pertinent information. “They’re coming!” she called over her shoulder a minute later.

Jon was already on his second set of compressions. “…fifteen, sixteen…”

Sansa gulped back a sob. She could hear the rising tide of panic in his count.

She looked to her mother, wanting to hear something like hope, that it wasn't what she thought. 

Her mother was looking right back at her, giving her a look she would never forget.

“What was he doing in your room, Sansa?” she whispered brokenly, wanting her own reassurance that it wasn't what she thought. 

“We were going to…he was…we...”

No excuses or lies could she speak. Words failed her altogether in the face of that look in her mother's eyes and Jon's count that had become more like sobs.

A long exhale and then, “Never mind. Get up, get dressed. We must do what we can to help. The family needs us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in the summary, things happen during the reunion weekend that risk tearing them apart. Those things are in motion now. I don't relish writing angst but the next chapter will have its share so I'm trying to work myself up to keep going. Hopefully, not all of you will bail on me 😅.
> 
> Meanwhile, the next few weeks will be a busy time for me personally so I may be slower with updates all around for a bit but I’ll do what I can. Please, take care and stay safe! ❤️❤️❤️


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family tries to cope with loss and Sansa wonders where her and Jon go from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been with me the last couple of days even though I've got others I hope to update again when I can get motivated on them.

_“I know my way back here.”_

He’d really said that, hadn’t he?

When everyone who could call themselves immediate family save Jon, Lyanna and her grandmother gathered around the kitchen table the next morning after the longest night Sansa had ever known, it almost seemed like a fantasy she’d invented inside her head. The kisses and caresses and... _all_ of it felt a little dreamlike at the moment. Her mind kept reliving certain moments and then she'd curse herself for thinking on those precious moments of their time together when she needed to focus one what mattered more right now.

Her Uncle Arthur was dead.

He’d died outside her bedroom in the hallway. He was likely dead before he fell to the floor. Uncle Benjen’s girlfriend Karsi was a nurse and whispered terms like sudden cardiac death, left anterior descending artery and myocardial infarction. Her grandfather called it a Widow Maker as he wiped his eyes and stirred his coffee. Jon’s chest compressions and rescue breaths couldn’t have saved him the cardiologist at the hospital had told her father.

“Sansa, mind the eggs.” Her mother’s brisk words were accompanied by a gentle squeeze of her elbow, recalling her daughter to her duties before she returned to her sausages and prepared to plate them with the stacks of toast she’d made.

_Why is my duty to scramble eggs no one feels like eating? None of the others are helping you cook either._

Bran and Rickon had drifted in and drifted it out like ghosts. Arya was sat at the table in the midst of the discussion but quiet as a mouse. Robb had arrived twenty minutes ago after their mother had called him with the news. He hadn’t showered, just come straight over.

But Sansa was expected to help cook because that’s what Sansa did.

_Stop whining. You want to help, don’t you?_

She was mistaken about no one wanting the eggs though. As soon as the overflowing platter was sat down in front of them, the eggs, sausages and toast disappeared in less than two minutes.

 _A man just died of a heart attack upstairs but sure, fill up on your dose of cholesterol,_ she wanted to say.

The boys drifted in like dogs looking for table scraps. They loaded up slices of toast with a sausage and mound of eggs apiece and then disappeared again, back to the television or their video games. Children weren’t expected to do any more than that at such a time. She’d made such a point of _not_ being a child, she’d forgot how much simpler it was.

“Go ahead and make some more eggs,” her mother said quietly in her ear.

Sansa bit back her frustration and did as her mother said. Doing what she could to help was no great sacrifice.

She was selfish to want to go lie down. No one cared if she’d had a very long Saturday followed by no sleep at all and was facing an equally long Sunday though it’d be long for far different and very somber reasons.

She was aching to see Jon, to offer him what comfort she could. But he was with his mother who needed him and Sansa felt like her own mother didn’t want her out of her sight for more than three minutes.

She was horrible to wish she could turn the clock back ten hours and relive parts of her night again. She was a wretched, horrible, selfish, aching girl to keep daydreaming about him when his father had died.

“Someone should see if they want anything,” her father said, glancing towards her mother a few minutes later. Of course, he’d suggest that to his wife rather than take the initiative to do it himself. _Fuck patriarchal misogyny._

“I will.”

Her parents turned to look at her and then their eyes met again as if she’d not said anything. Something unspoken but agreed upon was communicated and her father said, “Robb, go up and see if they want anything. Jon might anyway.”

Maybe it was just that they figured Robb was closer to Jon. Or maybe it was more. Had her mother said something to her father about how she’d found them? About Jon being in Sansa’s bedroom with no shirt after midnight and her panties lying on the floor?

She glared at them. She wasn’t a child and what had (and had not) happened last night wasn’t their business nor was it the fucking point right now.

Robb started to rise, reaching for his coffee cup to drain the last, and Sansa would not have it.

“I'll do it!” she said loudly and then stalked out of the kitchen, breaking into a run by the time she reached the stairs as if she thought someone would stop her.

Her heart was pounding as she reached the top step. She laid her hand over her chest and it hit her. Arthur was dead. His heart had stopped and he’d never come back.

She could picture his baffled but amused smile when he’d found them in the hotel’s pool last night. She remembered his friendly chatter about Dorne and her courses at university as they’d shared their rock yesterday morning during the hike while catching their breath until Jon had returned with his makeshift walking stick.

Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“What are you doing up here, lovey?”

Her grandmother was coming out of Robb’s old room with a bottle of pills and a glass of water.

“Grandma.”

It was the only word Sansa managed to say. She couldn’t seem to say a whole bunch since it happened. She sure thought a lot though.

Her grandmother’s hands were dry but powder soft. There was a plumpness to her fingers even though you could see her bones and veins stretched under the thinning skin sprinkled with age spots. She drew Sansa’s young smooth, petal soft hands into hers and kissed them once before brushing her granddaughter’s hair back from her face.

“There, there, child.”

Sansa was over a foot taller than her grandmother. That had not always been so. Lyarra Stark had once been considered tall for a woman but Arya was the only grandchild left who didn’t tower over her. She’d become more and more stooped with age. Someday, she was going to die as well.

But this morning, she held Sansa as if she were still a little girl and Sansa gladly let her.

It was only a few minutes, not even five, before her cry was done but she’d needed it. She’d needed the pressure cooker of emotion, fatigue and tension to find a little relief this morning, however temporary.

“I came to see if they wanted food, if you wanted food.”

“Come on then.”

Her grandmother led her to the guest bedroom that was Lyanna and Arthur’s. That was Lyanna’s and had been Arthur’s.

Her aunt was curled up in the bed under the covers. Only a wild mass of her dark, wavy hair was visible.

Jon was lying on top of the covers and curled around his mother’s body, his arm looped around her waist, holding her securely. Sansa ached again at the thoughts of being held by him.

The room smelled of sweat and salt and seemed to echo with sobs that were no longer there.

Jon was talking softly, words of comfort, before he realized Sansa and Lyarra had entered. Who was comforting him?

_That’s not fair. She lost her husband._

_And Jon lost his dad._

He sat up when he became aware of their presence. His eyes flashed with something when they landed on Sansa but it was hard to interpret what that something was.

“Mum,” he said, a plea as he gave his mother a gentle nudge.

No response at all.

“Sit up and take this, Lyanna,” her grandmother said firmly, passing her two pills and the water.

She had not budged for her son but her aunt did as her mother told her. _We daughters are always trying to placate our mothers, aren’t we?_ She took the dose and immediately laid back down.

Sansa felt awkward and conspicuous intruding on their grief. She’d lost her uncle, a dear, sweet man but one she’d seen on two occasions in the past decade.

Her aunt had lost her husband, her partner, her mate, the man she’d shared her life and her son with for the last fifteen years. Jon had lost the only father he’d truly known. Her loss could not be reckoned with theirs.

“Did you want to ask them, lovey, or did you want me to?” her grandmother prompted.

She found her tongue then as Jon kept staring at her and as she felt Lyanna’s eyes peering above the covers to look at her.

“Did you want anything to eat? Some breakfast or coffee? I’ll make you anything you like.” _Let me be useful. Let me show you how much I love you both._

Jon’s eyes flickered to his mother.

“Go and eat if you want, son,” Lyanna said but her hand clutched his tighter. _Don’t go,_ that hand said. _Don’t leave me._

“Nah, I’m alright, Mum. I’ll get something later on,” he assured his mother.

He gave Sansa a fleeting look of remorse before lying back down again. Was that remorse over an empty belly? Or remorse over something else? She did not know.

She went back downstairs feeling empty and useless and told the larger group that they didn’t want anything yet.

“They will. Give them time, love,” her father said gently, giving her hand a pat.

* * *

Jon and his mother’s flight was bumped back a few hours but they left that night all the same with Arthur’s body to follow. Their goodbye was brief and not private.

Robb and her father were loading suitcases in the trunk when Sansa finally hurried out to catch him, realizing she would miss the chance if she did not take it. He would not come to her.

“I’m coming down next week for the service,” she told him.

He nodded absently, spinning the rental car key on his finger, preparing to drive himself and his mother back to the airport in the car that Arthur’s had rented Friday afternoon, the one she’d rode back from the hotel in on Friday night, falling asleep on Jon’s shoulder.

She didn’t believe Jon was thinking on that. He didn’t even seem fully cognizant of her words but she could hardly blame him. Such a severe and sudden loss would leave a deep impact.

“We can talk then,” he murmured into her hair during a brief but crushing one-armed hug before he was slipping, slipping away and out of her grasp.

The taillights faded away a few minutes later and he was gone. Gone, gone, gone. 

* * *

  
Twenty-four hours had passed since Jon and Lyanna had left. She'd spent most of that time sleeping. Or in bed anyway. She'd slept very hard the first four hours and then been in a groggy state of in between the following few. She'd got up long enough to say goodbye to her grandparents who were traveling back home, about two hours north of Winterfell, and promptly gone back to bed. It felt like she had the flu but she wasn't sick. 

She'd just sat up and decided to do some sketching when her bedroom door opened, her mother with a basket of clothes and a worried look. _Shit, here it comes_.

“You left these from Saturday night, I think. I had to wash them again since they'd been laying there damp all this time. I hung up your bra." 

It was the clothes she'd run Saturday night with Jon when she'd been tempted to climb him like a tree beside the washing machine. _Well, goody_. Maybe she was in trouble for neglecting the laundry more than getting caught with Jon in her room. "I'm sorry I left it. I forgot."

"Understandable," her mother said, waving that away and still hovering in the doorway.

"Come on in if you want." 

She did, sitting the basket down on the dresser before turning to get to it. "Sansa? I know you're not a child but I'm always going to be your mother."

"I know that, Mum." 

She did know that and loved her mother very much. Her mother wasn't perfect but Sansa liked to think she was mature enough by this point, even at nineteen, to realize that no parents were. _'We do our best,'_ her mother had once told her and she'd remembered. Her mother did her best with her five kids and Sansa couldn't say she'd done all that badly, not at all. 

"You may tell me it's not my business but...did he…did you want him in here? Did he force you into anything?”

Gods. Had that been worrying her?

“No, Mum. I wanted him here. He wouldn't have forced me to do anything." Her mother exhaled shakily and she looked so exhausted. She'd been going nonstop. "Sit down, Mum. You need to rest some." Once she was perched on the edge of Sansa's bed, she reiterated the point. "You know Jon isn't like that at all." 

“I didn't think so but I knew you'd both been drinking and...well, sometimes men are different when they drink." She had a point, Sansa supposed, considering her grandfather's words during the dance. "And it's been a long while since we'd seen him. I wasn't sure what to make of it and worried if he'd been pressuring you. Young men his age have _appetites_ and...”

She could feel a flush building as her mother started fumbling her words. They talked about things but this was a topic that was generally hedged around. Two years ago, Sansa had told her mother she was still a virgin but wanted to start birth control to be safe. She knew she didn't want to wind up a mother herself too young. Her mother had made her an appointment with their gynecologist and told her to come to her if she had any concerns or wanted to talk.

Last year, Sansa hadn't particularly wanted to discuss Harry and the ways she'd been mistaken about him but she’d admitted to her mother that him pressuring her for things she wasn't ready for was the reason they’d broken up. 

Her mother was still sitting there, looking anxious. 

“We had been drinking but it didn't effect my judgement to that extent. I knew what I was doing, what I wanted. If he has appetites, so do I. He didn’t pressure me or force me into anything. He didn't do anything I didn't want him to do, alright?" 

Her mother's relief over that didn't erase all her concerns though. She didn't understand what had happened between them from Friday afternoon to Saturday night. Sansa couldn't say she was surprised. She wasn't sure she could put it into words herself. They'd not seen each other in years. And from her mother's point of view, they were cousins which should automatically make them taboo to one another in that respect no matter how attractive and single they were. 

The Faith of the Seven had grown opposed to marriages between first cousins under some High Septon three centuries ago and it hadn't changed its mind back the other way on the matter yet. That was the way with them and, while her mother didn't share their close-minded views on homosexuality and women's rights, she was a devout follower on the whole. “And you were alright with that? Even though he’s your cousin?”

“Alright with what?” Arya asked, coming into the bedroom.

_Perfect timing and quiet as a mouse, like always._

Sansa hadn't been prepared for a liturgical or theological debate anyway. 

“Never mind,” their mother said, hopping up from the bed to scoot past Arya while saying she'd need to start dinner soon.

“What was she saying about Jon?” Arya asked no sooner than she'd left, that keen, curious look in her eye. She plopped down on the bed without any invitation. Once upon a time, Sansa would’ve scolded her sister for it, told her to get out and butt out. They were well past that.

“She was just asking about something from that night.”

 _That night_. Would they ever reach a point when they had to clarify which night they meant when they said ‘that night?’ All things considered, maybe they’d be lucky if they didn’t.

Arya's voice dropped low. “He was in here with you, wasn’t he?”

“You knew?!”

“I guessed. I went to fetch him some things from his room after the ambulance left and noticed his bed hadn't been touched and...he looked like he was already dressed for bed when everything was happening. You were acting funny together all weekend, sticking close by each other. Some of the Karstarks were making jokes about kissing cousins when the two of you disappeared during the dance. I didn't believe any of it then but after...I kept thinking about it.”

“Oh.” The blood drained from her face thinking about how the Karstark kin loved to talk. _“Oh.”_

“It’s okay, Sansa. He’s a damn sight better than Harry.”

“You don’t think we’re gross…or weird?"

“I already told you you’re both weird but I don’t think you’re gross. But did you guys...you know...” 

Her sister’s cheeks were as pink as Sansa imagined hers must be. Sansa might've felt smug that her sister couldn't quite spit it out except... 

“No. We did _other_ stuff.” Seven hells, she couldn't even say the words. _We kissed. We made out. He ate me out. If I wasn't a virgin and a little uncertain, I think we would've had sex...that is before his father had a massive heart attack right outside the door. Gods._

“Other stuff, huh?”

Arya waggled her eyebrows playfully and they both started giggling because who would’ve imagined them discussing this sort of thing with regards to their Cousin Jon? 

Once they’d sobered from their laughter, Arya asked the stickier questions. She was always very good at that.

“What now then? Are you going to do the long-distance thing?"

"Uh...I don't know."

"Didn't you talk after?"

"When did we have time, Arya?"

"Right. Well, you're going to talk though, I'm sure. It wasn't a one-off type thing, was it?”

"I..." Sansa couldn't answer. Her brain had stuttered to a halt over ‘one-off type thing.’

 _'I know my way back here.'_ It sounded so promising. 

She’d been building it up in her head as more but what did she know? She wasn't that experienced in this sort of thing while he seemed to be. _Except the cousin part._ He’d been troubled to learn she was a virgin, too. What had he said?

_“I don’t go around taking girls’ virginity over weekend holidays on the regular or anything.”_

Was Jon more of a player than she realized? Just because he said he’d broken up with his last girlfriend over six months ago, that didn’t mean he’d been living like a septon, did it? He was a university student.

Scratch that.

He was a university _graduate_ about to start a real, grownup job in a city hundreds of miles away. She was a nineteen-year-old virgin living with her parents for the summer until she could return to her dormitory in September. 

“Sansa?”

She forced her troubled thoughts away and looked at her sister. “Yeah, we're going to talk when we go down for the funeral.”

“I think he really likes you.”

“You do?”

“Uh huh. He may be a goner for you." _Is he?_ "It's pretty sickening.” 

Arya laughed because she hadn't meant that but Sansa couldn't help but ask, “That doesn’t bother you, does it?”

“No. You know what I think of the Faith's views on lots of things." 

Arya hadn't willingly gone to the sept since she was fourteen. Sansa couldn't even picture refusing to go when their mother asked at that age. 

"And while at first I didn’t like him spending time with you instead of me, I kind of realized he wasn’t spending time with you the way he did with me when we were kids. I don’t want his attention that way but it’s okay if you do. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.” Arya hopped off the bed and headed towards the door again. “I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had about a guy.”

 _I think it’s one of the longest conversations we’ve ever had, period, that didn’t dissolve into bickering._ “Me, too.”

“I didn’t hate it.”

“Me, either.”

* * *

The Red Mountains in the distance made her fingers itch for her sketching pad while her eyes burn with unshed tears. She was somewhere new, somewhere she’d never been but it was for such a depressing reason. She wished she could’ve seen Dorne with Arthur by her side to tell her about the land he loved. She would’ve preferred to sketch his pride and joy rather than her sorrow. 

They only stopped at the house for a few minutes to drop off their things before heading to the funeral. A trusted neighbor who was watching the house was waiting to let them in since Jon and Lyanna had had to go to the funeral home early. 

“Gods, it’s hot,” Arya complained after they'd changed and got back into the rental. Sansa was glad her dress was short-sleeved. “Can you turn on the radio, Dad?”

Sansa closed her tired eyes and listened to the music while she imagined painting a landscape. 

_‘Summer has come and passed  
The innocent can never last  
Wake me up when September ends_

_Like my fathers come to pass  
Seven years has gone so fast  
Wake me up when September ends_

_Here comes the rain again  
Falling from the stars  
Drenched in my pain again  
Becoming who we are’_

Her parents had reserved two rooms at a local hotel. Arthur and Lyanna’s house was large but not as large as theirs. Sansa wasn’t sure who’d be staying where but hopefully, she’d find a moment to talk to Jon alone. 

Their flight back was tomorrow night, a very quick turn around that couldn't be helped between work and such. Not much time to talk and figure things out. Would they have the chance at all? He’d said they would but Sansa wasn’t sure what to expect and she really couldn’t blame him if he wasn’t ready to talk either. Only a week had passed. They’d all experienced a sudden and horrible loss but it was unquestionably the hardest for her aunt and Jon. 

She also kept thinking about that night in her bedroom and where they would go from here…if anywhere. Was it fading away for him in the face of bigger things? Would it forever be tainted by what happened after? Would he rather forget it? Forget her? 

“Come on, love. We’re here,” her father said, drawing her from an uneasy dozing when the car pulled to a stop again. 

The receiving of friends and family could almost be called a bustling affair except that it would probably be wrong to think of it that way. Family had come from all over to attend though, Arthur’s relatives as well as Lyanna’s along with work colleagues and old friends. 

Her aunt was wearing a sleeveless black sheath dress. Her hair had been washed and styled but the haunted look from a week ago was still very much in evidence, maybe even more so. 

Jon was handsome in his dark suit and tie with his hair tied back tonight. His expression was shuttered with others milling about. Two women were bickering by the casket and he looked annoyed. His smile was genuine when he saw them though.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said as they embraced.

“I’m glad to be here.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.

They smiled at each other a touch awkwardly until Robb stepped in to hug him, followed by her parents and younger siblings. 

After that, they wouldn’t be alone together for another three hours. 

Jon introduced his best friend from university, Samwell Tarly, when he arrived and his girlfriend, Gilly. Sansa stood to the side as they caught up, not wishing to intrude, but she noticed the way the couple gave her a subtle appraisal. Jon had introduced her as Sansa and not mentioned their familial tie. Did that mean anything? Did Sam and Gilly think she might be a new girlfriend? What was wrong with her obsessing over these things at his father’s funeral?!

Some of his cousins on the Dayne side arrived after that who were around his age. They were obviously eager to talk but he didn't make an effort to introduce her. He disappeared outside for about fifteen minutes with them while she told herself not to be concerned over it. 

When Jon returned, he smelled of cigarette smoke and gave her hand a squeeze. “Can we get out of here after this and talk?”

“Of course, we can.”

He nodded and stuck close to his mother the rest of the evening so Sansa stuck close to her parents, grandparents and siblings until everyone else was gone. 

* * *

The bell clanged when they entered the diner after eleven. “They’re open 24/7,” he explained. “I think I practically lived here my second and third year when I was cramming for exams and the library kicked me out.”

“You didn’t study at your dorm or just go home to your parents’ house?”

“Nah, too many distractions at the dorms and I would’ve just slept at home.” 

“There’s distractions here. People, jukebox…”

“These distractions don’t know my name,” he chuckled.

_Who knew your name and distracted you from your studies? I’ll bet she was pretty._

They found a booth to themselves as the server came up to take their orders. While they waited, they discussed little bits and pieces of what had been happening. He was supposed to start training for the job Arthur had helped him get post-graduation but he’d spoken to the boss and got a delay. 

“How long?”

“Two months. It’s out of respect for Arthur, I know. I wouldn’t expect many businesses to be that understanding but my mother needs me right now and I know my heart wouldn’t be in it.”

He’d already mentioned not being enthused about the job, about wanting to possibly head off somewhere else like Kings Landing or Winterfell. He wouldn’t want to leave his mother though. What if she wanted to come home to Winterfell? It was too soon to make any major decisions but maybe. Sansa tried to tell her hopes to calm down. 

“Anyway, I’ll start my training in late August and be full-time starting in September.”

“September? I’ll be back to it by then, too.”

The conversation wound on. There were some financial concerns. Arthur’s sister Ashara had some serious mental health issues and Arthur had wound up supporting her and her children off and on over the past ten years. Now, those adult kids were wanting to know what money was coming their way from Uncle Arthur’s estate.

“I can’t believe they’d ask you that at your father’s funeral,” she fumed, remembering the cousins he hadn't introduced. “Was that why you were smoking?”

“Yeah, bad habit I picked up from ‘Gritte.” _Ah, the ex-girlfriend_. “I’d quit after we broke up but bought a pack three days ago when shit was getting a little too much. Anyway, I ran them off but I’m sure they’ll be back. I just want to keep them away from Mum as much as possible.” He was the son but she knew he was protective of his mother. She thought it was very sweet honestly. 

The topic shifted to related matters. It felt odd to discuss probate court and final resting places. Sansa didn’t have much to add but these things had been weighing on Jon’s mind obviously and she wanted him to feel free to talk about whatever he needed to talk about. 

“I’m sorry. I know this is boring. I’ve just been trying to help Mum.”

“No, don’t apologize. I figured she’s…it must be so hard.”

“Yeah.” He gripped his coffee mug tightly and blew across the top of it. “It’s hard. Getting away with you tonight feels like the first time I'm doing something normal since it happened.”

“I’m glad for that at least.”

He smiled sadly, reaching for her hand. For a moment, she thought he might be on the cusp of saying more but the server returned with their orders and he was too busy eating to talk. Sansa wondered if he’d eaten much this past week based on how quickly his grilled cheese sandwich and fries were disappearing. 

Arya texted as they were leaving to say sleeping arrangements had been decided. They were sharing the foldout in Arthur’s study. “We’re staying at your house, looks like. She says our grandparents are in the spare bedroom and Robb’s bunking in with you on an air mattress if that’s alright. My parents and the boys are at the hotel.” 

He nodded slowly. “That’s fine but…I don’t think I want to go home yet. I wanted us to talk about something else, too.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile as her belly trembled sickly with nerves. 

* * *

The Torentine River flowed through the Red Mountains in a series of rapids making its away towards the Summer Sea. Jon parked his car at an overlook point so they could talk. It certainly looked romantic and Sansa suddenly wondered if they’d do much talking. What did he want? What did she want? Where were they headed?

In sync, they unclicked their seatbelts and turned to face each other. His hands were warm when he cupped her face. He leaned towards her but without the hunger she’d seen last week. She could tell immediately that this wasn’t going to be the kind of talk she’d hoped for. 

She drew a ragged breath when their foreheads touched. “You need time,” she whispered, wanting to make it easier for him. 

He grimaced and closed his eyes. “I do. I need time. I’m sorry. I'm not in a good place to start something even though I'd like to. I care about you, Sansa, but my dad died. Mum needs me and our family is…”

“The family,” she sighed, knowing what a loaded subject that was for them. “It's alright. We live so far apart and you’re done with classes and I’ve still got three years to go.”

“Yeah.” 

The timing sucked, the memories of their moments together that night were unfortunately touched by tragedy and they were in different stages of their lives. It wasn’t insurmountable but those were the facts. Gods, it fucking hurt all the same and felt so unfair. 

“Can I hold you? Just for a bit?" he asked. "You’re…I’ll never forget the best parts of that trip, Sansa. I’ll never forget…” He gulped and swallowed hard as the first tears started to fall. 

“You can hold me as long as you want,” she told him as she began to cry, too. _I’m yours. Part of me always will be._

They climbed into the backseat of his car to make it easier but there wasn't any serious action to fog up the windows. There were a few kisses but more tears. In the end, she thought she may have held him as much as he held her that night beneath the Southern stars on the banks of the Torentine. She told herself she wouldn't regret it as the sky started to lighten even as she wished for more. 

When they reached the house, dawn was breaking as they quietly snuck into the house. Jon said he’d head to the sofa in the living room for fear of waking Robb upstairs. Sansa kissed his cheek and went into Arthur’s study. 

She quickly pulled on her jersey, the same one she'd worn last week and had just crawled into bed next to Arya, attempting to close her eyes when she heard voices in the kitchen. 

Robb. 

“Where the fuck have you been all night?!"

"I've been...out."

"With Sansa, yeah! I know, I saw you two sneaking in together! I know you’ve been through hell this week but where did you go and why have you had my sister out all night with you like that?!”

"Robb, can you keep it down?"

"Fucking hell, Jon, answer the question!"

She couldn’t hear Jon’s response through the wall but she didn’t really need to. _He was telling me goodbye…for now anyway._

Arya reached for her hand in the slowly lightening room and the sisters exchanged a look as the cousins argued in the next room. Her heart ached and her throat felt swollen closed. She wasn't sure what to do. 

Their voices had lowered enough that they only caught snatches of the conversation but they'd managed to wake up someone else.

“Boys, it’s too damned early for whatever you’re bickering about down here,” they heard their grandfather say. “Jon, you look like hell and should get some rest. Don’t let your mum see you’ve been out all night either or she’ll worry. She’s got enough to worry about. Robb, for fuck’s sake, think about what he’s been through this week and let him be.” 

“Fine, I’ll let him be if _he’ll_ let things be,” Robb said with a furious finality that hurt to hear. He had it all wrong. 

Sansa rose from the bed and headed to the kitchen, thinking she’d talk to her brother and make things right. 

But she heard the door to the garage slam shut and then what sounded like the front door open and close and her grandfather was alone in the kitchen when she walked in. He looked tired and heartsick like everyone else and he was rubbing at his eyes. “I’m sorry if the boys disturbed your rest, pumpkin.” 

“I wasn’t asleep, Grandpa. Did someone leave?”

He nodded wearily and patted her cheek. “Yeah, Robb and Jon both did. Not together but…don’t worry. They’ll come back.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be a time skip next chapter to bring Jon and Sansa back together again so I hope that helps. Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Lyrics from "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip at the end of the chapter.

Robb and Jon had both returned later that morning as her grandfather had promised they would but their goodbye had been more stilted than anyone would’ve expected for the two cousins who had always got along well and been quite close at periods of their lives.

Sansa’s default reaction might’ve been guilt over it. At one time, she might’ve blamed herself for causing the riff but slowly she was working past those old, ingrained habits and notions. Robb had done this with his ridiculous, reactive display that morning after the worst week of Jon’s life.

Granted, Robb had stayed up all night worrying what had become of Jon after the funeral since they were sharing Jon’s bedroom. He’d been a mass of anxiety and guilt himself thinking he should’ve made sure Jon got back home. He’d sent texts after midnight but Jon had his phone silenced and hadn’t bothered looking at it while he and Sansa spent the night talking and holding each other in the backseat of his car.

Now, his cousin would barely speak to him…and Robb might’ve almost wished his sister wouldn’t for, as soon as they were home again, she gave her big brother an earful about his intrusive, unwanted and unwarranted behavior.

“I just thought…I didn’t know what to think, Sansa,” Robb said after she’d none-too-politely told him to butt the fuck out of her life. “I only want what’s best for you and I knew he’d been out all night and when I saw you two pulling up to the house I kind of…”

“Lost all sense of reason or cognizance of what century we live in? We just talked mostly but, even if that weren’t the case, it’s not your business, Robb. I’m not a little girl.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Robb scrubbed at his face. “But after the little swimming excursion last weekend and then you spending the whole night together, I couldn’t help but think that maybe…well, are you two…romantically involved?” 

Every word was uttered as if speaking them were costing him years of his life. Who knew Robb Stark had such a flair for drama when it came to his younger sister and her potential love life? 

She’d like to be romantically involved but Jon wasn’t in a good place for it and she was coming to realize how much she’d allowed herself to become a little too hyper-fixated on the idea when he was going through an absolutely horrendous time personally.

Had she been avoiding her own grief by focusing so intently on Jon and what they might be to each other? Was she a wretched, selfish woman feeling a little sorry for herself that circumstances beyond their control had ended things just as they'd begun? Did some kisses and a mind-blowing orgasm mean anything serious had begun in the first place?

She frowned to herself. Those questions were as uncomfortable as the one Robb had just posed. She wasn’t prepared to answer any of them yet so she gave Robb a skewering look and said nothing.

“Gods, alright. It’s not my business, like you said. But I hope you know you can always come to me if…if you need me, Sansa.”

Her lips twitched just slightly at that. He was not a perfect brother no more than she was a perfect sister but they loved each other. And, she recalled what Jon had said about Robb talking up her artistic talent to him. _'It's still love, Sansa.'_

“I’ll remember,” she told him with a nod. “You should apologize to Jon.”

“I will.”

“Do it, Robb. No putting it off because you're guys and don’t talk about your feelings or whatever bullshit you tell yourselves.”

“Think you’ve got me figured out, do you?”

“I do and, if you don’t talk to Jon and fully apologize, I’ll tell Jeyne how you behaved like a caveman down in Dorne.”

“You wouldn't tell her that, would you?”

"Tell me what?" Jeyne asked, walking into the room unannounced. 

Robb's ears started turning red and Sansa couldn't help cackling, telling sweet Jeyne to ask her caveman. She punctuated those words by sticking her tongue out at Robb because, just like big brothers acting ludicrously overprotective, some habits die harder than others.

* * *

The summer weeks passed with Sansa doing her best to distract herself. Between working on some design ideas along with her sketching and volunteering to haul Bran and Rickon here and there, the days seemed to fade away swiftly enough. 

But she thought of her family down in Dorne often all the same. 

Some days she’d walk along the upstairs hallway with no memories of Jon sobbing out numbers in conjunction with chest compressions, without seeing Arthur’s feet through the doorway of her bedroom, without shivering when she recalled her aunt’s cries for help.

Some days she thought of all those things and she could barely make it to her room and close the door before she was sinking onto her bed to cry. 

She wondered how Jon and Lyanna were faring. Her father spoke to his sister regularly and spoke of one day at a time. It sounded sensible but then again, her father was not a man much given to outward displays of emotion. His sister could be coming apart at the seams and he'd be saying 'one day at a time, Lya.' 

Robb had called Jon and apologized. Jon had forgiven him…but also not lingered on the phone with him for long. 

Robb and Sansa had understood. He needed space. But, it did make her nervous about calling him herself. They’d said their goodbyes on the banks of the Torentine and again at his house before she’d left Dorne. She’d told him to call if he wanted to talk. He hadn’t called and she hadn’t called him either. 

When a month had passed, Sansa called her aunt to tell her she loved her and was thinking of her. She reached her voice mail. Lyanna had replied an hour later with a text, a string of heart emojis. She didn’t want to discuss the gaping hole the sudden death of her husband had left with her niece. 

That night, Sansa worked up her courage and sent Jon a text. It didn’t feel all that courageous because, in truth, she was texting instead of calling. She was a little afraid of hearing that same sad regret like when he’d told her he needed time. 

The text was left open-ended without pressure to respond, just letting him know he was in her thoughts, that she hoped he was well and he was always welcome to call her or text if he wanted to.

By the time she fell asleep, there was no reply. 

Around 1AM she woke with Jon very much on her mind. It was impossible to completely forget the feel of his arms around her, his kisses and his tongue and her subconscious mind did delight in tormenting her with those thoughts. 

Frustrated and lonely, she looked at her phone, reading back over her text, analyzing it and second guessing every word. 

Then, as her eyes were getting heavy and she'd nearly put her phone down, she gave a quiet yelp. Those three little blinking ellipses had appeared out of nowhere. 

_He’s responding!_

Had he woke up thinking about her in the same manner she had been thinking of him? She felt flushed at the thought. 

The little ellipses appeared and disappeared and then appeared again. 

She watched them in agony waiting to see what he might say, wondering if she should type something back to say she could see he was awake and pondering her text. Was he typing and deleting? Writing her a novel with breaks in between while he thought out his words? 

Her finger hovered over the screen but dropped when the ellipses vanished yet again. 

She laid her phone back down and counted to one hundred. She picked it back up. Nothing. 

She blinked back tears and rolled to her side, determined not to look at it again until morning. 

When she woke after a fitful night’s sleep there was still nothing. Her message was simply marked as ‘Read.’

* * *

_“I know my way back here.”_

She’d thought of him saying those words so many times but, every time she thought on it lately, it felt less and less certain, a maybe more than a someday.

Her father had told them at dinner her last night at home that Jon had started his training for his job in Starfall and that her aunt was thinking about selling her house. A new job and helping his mother potentially ready the house for the market and then seeing through a move. He’d be busy. Life didn’t grind to a halt and the living didn’t remain in stasis when a loved one died. 

As for Sansa, September had arrived and she’d moved back into her dormitory and thrown herself into her classes and studies. He’d said he needed time. She didn’t know how much time he needed but she would not pressure him. She had a life to live, too. 

_Life goes on…mostly._

By late September, a young man on her floor had asked her out. He was sweet and attractive but she could not move on in that manner, not when she still held hope.

She got used to saying no when she was asked out by other guys even as a little part of her wondered if she was the greatest fool not to move on with her life. But those young men didn't stir anything in her no more than those boys back in school had. 

If Jon wanted to fade away and out of her life, she supposed that was his choice. Her own heart was too attached to let it go yet. For now, she would say no to any other guys. In time, they stopped asking. 

* * *

In late October, Arya came to visit her on campus and share her own plans for university next year.

“Braavos? How can you go to Braavos?”

“It’s not hard. There’s airplanes and even ships that sail there.”

“Arya!” she huffed, half annoyed by her sister’s sarcasm when she wanted to bawl her eyes out. 

“It’s a big deal them letting me in. They don't take many foreign exchange students.”

“You misunderstand me. I know it’s a big deal and I’m very proud of you. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’d pictured you attending here next year and let myself get carried away with daydreams of us sharing a dorm maybe and…”

“...bickering over who got to shower first? You wouldn’t want your little sister hanging around with your friends.”

“But I would. They couldn’t be my friends if they didn’t love her, too.”

“Sansa, don’t make me cry. I hate crying. You know this. It’s why we can’t watch those humane society telethons on television.”

“I’m going to miss you…so much.”

Arya’s chin was wobbling. She might hate to cry but it didn’t mean she never did it. “I’ll miss you, too." Their hands were clasped as they leaned against each other. "I’m just…I’m never going to get it figured out if I don’t get away from them for a bit, you know? I love them all but I need this.”

* * *

_I love them all but I need this._

Those words would return to Sansa a few weeks later.

All families have a skeleton or two in the closet. They might range from the mildly scandalous to the outright macabre or criminal but there's always matters that aren't bandied about with just everyone. There are things kept in ‘the vault’ for lack of a better word. The Starks and Tullys were no different. Her Aunt Lyanna’s relationship with Jon’s father when she’d been seventeen and him a married man in his mid-twenties was one example of those things. 

There are times when old tidbits of information aren’t passed along and shared by the older generation and wind up lost. Or sometimes, the younger generation is too caught up in their own affairs when it is parceled out and nearly misses the revelation. Such was the case for Sansa. 

Her grandparents had come into town for the weekend and Sansa came home to visit. She was enjoying the opportunity to bake with her grandmother on a Saturday afternoon, something she’d not been able to do in a long time, while vaguely listening to her grandmother prattle away about the monster flick that had been playing at the drive-in theater where her grandfather had taken them on their third date when something caught her attention.

“Wait…what do you mean you had to climb the fence and tore your skirt when you got home?"

"I couldn't get caught sneaking back in after seeing him. My mother would've had my hide."

"Grandma! You snuck out to go on a date with Grandpa?!" This was unbelievable. 

“Yes. We managed to sneak around for nearly three months before we were caught.”

“Grandma!” she gasped again before erupting into giggles. Never had she given much thought to them being young or rebellious. They were always just who they were to Sansa. 

_Oh, grow up. They’ve got a life and lived one, too. How do you think your father, aunt and uncle appeared for that matter? Just turned up under a cabbage leaf one day?_

“We had little choice. Some of the family had _views_ on us courting as we still labeled it back then.”

“Views? What views?”

“What with us being related and all.”

“Related?!”

“Uh huh. We’re first cousins once removed. Didn’t your dad ever tell you that?”

“No.” 

“Oh goodness. Ned's always been tightlipped about family matters. Have I shocked you terribly, lovey?” 

She was surprised but not shocked. She laughed and shook her head _. I wish I’d known sooner though and not spent so much time questioning myself over wanting him and loving him like I do._

“Of course, most of my kin and his kept the old gods and didn’t take exception to it so long as it was not practiced generation after generation. None of my babies came out with two heads or anything, I assure you," she added with a sniff. "But some of the family had moved on to the new faith including my mother and his with regards to marriage between cousins by then so…well, they came around eventually.”

“They did?” Sansa sighed, dreaming of things she probably had no right to dream of.

“Of course, lovey. Once they laid eyes on your dad as a baby anyway. He was such a handsome little baby!” 

* * *

“What do you mean Jon quit his job?!” 

Sansa hadn't shouted like her grandfather but she'd nearly dropped the serving bowl she’d been passing to Rickon during Sunday dinner.

“That’s what Lyanna said, Dad. Jon wasn’t happy at the company and turned in his notice.”

“Turned in his notice?! He just started! And it was a good job! What’s he thinking just walking away from it that way?!”

Sansa bit her lip, not wishing to argue with her grandfather but sympathizing with Jon. He’d not been enthused about the job when he’d told her of it that night by the hotel pool. Arthur had lined it up for him since the owner had been a friend of his. Jon had talked of wanting to find something for himself somewhere else like Kings Landing…or Winterfell. 

_Or Winterfell._

Her aunt was going to sell her house. Jon had quit his job in Starfell. Could they be coming back North?

Her tummy was fluttering wildly and _‘I know my way back here’_ was stuck on a loop in her head. 

She waited until her grandfather had finished his rant about the younger generation not respecting how hard it was to find good work and the importance of having a steady reputation to ask, “What’s he going to do, Dad?” 

“He’s going to take an extended trip to Essos with his friend Sam Tarly after Lyanna’s house is sold, love.”

“Essos?” she repeated, her voice strangely flat sounding in her ears. 

“What in seven hells is he going to do in Essos?!” her grandfather exclaimed.

_What indeed?_

“He needs some time away to figure things out, I reckon, Dad."

"His mother needs him!"

 _Yes_ , Sansa thought, agreeing with her grandfather. _He said his mother would need him._ How could he go skipping off to Essos? 

Admittedly, it was her hurt feelings speaking. He'd graduated from university six months ago. He was twenty-two and could live his life. He wasn't chained to his mother forever simply because his step-father had died. 

_He's not chained to me either._

Fuck, that hurt. She'd been giving him time but deep down she'd been hoping he'd come back here, come back to her. 

He wasn't going to come back, was he? 

He might never forget the best parts of that weekend like he swore that night by the Torentine but he wasn't moving on with his life by looking to having a relationship with his cousin Sansa. He was going with his friend Sam Tarly to Essos to do who knew what. 

"Lyanna already told him to go, Dad. He's not a little boy and she knows that. She's managing and they both need to work through this in their way, she says. Don’t worry about Jon. He’s got a good head on his shoulders,” her father said. "He'll get it together and find something that suits him in time." 

The fluttering in her tummy had transformed into a ripping, chewing sensation. She felt so wounded while telling herself she had no right to be. _You never made me any promises. I only invented them inside my head._

She noticed her mother giving her a sympathetic look and that only made it harder to hold it together. She shoved a bit of food into her mouth and ignored her watering eyes while the conversation carried on around her. 

When it was time to clean up dinner, her mother asked if she’d help. By that point, Sansa could barely stand herself let alone the thought of having 'a talk' about Jon leaving the country. 

“No, sorry. I've got some studying to do for tomorrow so I need to head back to campus but Bran and Rickon are here and perfectly able. In fact, you made dinner, Mum. You should let them handle clean up and rest.”

Her mother's eyes grew wide but her beaming smile made Sansa decide she wouldn't take it back. 

“But…but…we left streaks on the glasses, remember, Mum?” Bran stammered.

“And we nearly broke her dishwasher that one time,” Rickon added, looking to their father for aid.

“Then, it sounds like you both need some more practice to get better at it. You're both very bright boys and I can't see a dishwasher stumping you for long if you apply yourselves. Houses don’t run themselves and Mum's not going to follow you around forever to clean up your messes. And don't assume you'll find a partner to do it all for you someday. We're not living in the Dark Ages or the 50s for that matter." 

She could hear her grandmother snorting with laughter while the males at the table all stared at her gobsmacked.

"Dad can help if you can't figure out the dishwasher, can’t you, Dad?”

“Uh…” Her father blinked a few times but was quickly stifling laughter to say, “Of course, I can. Cat, you do so much around here. Boys, your sister's right. You should definitely pitch in more.”

"What the..." Rickon got out before thinking better of it. 

Sansa rose from the table, kissing her parents and grandparents goodbye as her little brothers gave her looks of shock and rage. She didn’t care. It’d be good for them in the long run.

She drove back to campus, half tempted to tell Arya who'd been away at a fencing competition about it. But once she reached her dormitory, she did something besides calling her sister or studying. Her roommate wouldn't be back until the morning. She had peace and quiet and the room to herself. Sansa turned on her laptop and started looking at transfer opportunities and internships for next year. Winterfell would always be her home at heart but there was nothing wrong with leaving the nest when the time felt right. 

Two hours into her research, her phone lit up with a notification, a text from Bran. He wanted her to know that he had a new respect for cleaning up the kitchen after a full family dinner...and he wasn't going to speak to her for at least a week. 

She laughed and started to lay her phone back down when she thought of Jon. She was still hurting but not angry.

Sansa: _Dad says you left your job and you’re taking a trip to Essos with Sam._

She pressed send. No sooner than it was delivered, she wanted to say something else.

Sansa: _I hope you’re alright. I guess it's okay to tell you that you’re on my mind a lot. Do you think about me at all?_

That made her feel vulnerable and she forced herself to put the phone face down on her bedside table and return to her search. 

She’d narrowed down some decent potentials and requested an appointment with her advisor when she decided to call it a night. After she’d brushed her teeth and was preparing to lay down, she decided to check her phone again. He’d replied.

Jon: _I think about you. I didn’t want to disturb your studies but I should've said this before now. I think about you. I think about you every day, Sansa._

Gods, why'd he have to say something so sweet that only made her hurt that much more?

Sansa: _But you're still going to Essos._

He was typing a response within ten seconds. Jon: _Yes, I am. It’s something I need to do._

She stared at his words, waiting for some further explanation. There wasn't one.

She wanted to reply but didn't know what to say. He thought about her and she thought about him but he was going to Essos with his best friend and she was here in that place he said he knew his way back to. 

Would the timing ever be right for them? Would they ever have another chance?

She didn't know and was glad she was alone so no one else would hear her crying herself to sleep. 

* * *

**One year later**

It was ridiculously hot for winter down here but she figured Dorne might be hotter. Her tea and lemon danish were fighting a little battle in her belly with her nerves. The victor hadn't been declared yet but she hoped to make it through the morning without dashing to the ladies' room to vomit. She was glad she’d put her hair up in a bun and that her suit jacket was a dark pattern capable of hiding sweat rings if necessary. She’d probably need to leave the jacket on all day. Maybe she was supposed to anyway. This was a professional working environment, not the classrooms at KLU where she would be taking this semester’s courses.

Six months in Kings Landing on the horizon. A good time to get away from home and figure some things out maybe. And maybe make a fresh start in other ways.

_Maybe you could’ve chosen another city for that though._

She hadn’t known when she’d accepted the internship/exchange program offer that she wouldn’t be the only Stark down here. 

Jon had returned from Essos four months ago and come to the capital. Her father had relayed with a stony look that he'd been talking to his biological father and decided to settle here for a while. There was no finding his way back to Winterfell after months and months in Essos but it seemed Kings Landing would do.

So be it.

She'd already put down a deposit on her tiny cupboard of an apartment near campus by that point as well as signing the exchange paperwork. She wasn't running to him but she wasn't going to run away either. 

Her aunt had sold her house in Starfall and had joined him here, too. Did her aunt relate news about her to Jon the way her father did about him? Or were there too many cousins to keep up with for her to share that? 

Sansa would need to let on to them eventually but right now, this time was for her to fly off into the world and try something new. The capital was huge and there was no reason for them to be hanging around KLU’s campus. Hopefully, they wouldn’t bump into each other in this part of the city either. 

The noise from the streets seemed to be echoing inside her brain as Sansa entered Connington Creative Group. Yes, Jon had a degree in marketing but there were fifty-eight other marketing firms listed here and this one was on the smaller side, specializing in print work and logo designs which was in Sansa’s wheelhouse…or what she hoped would be her wheelhouse.

Taking a deep breath, she passed through the revolving door into the climate controlled air and muted tan marble. Spying the main reception desk, she repeated her rehearsed speech inside her head as her heels clicked across the floor towards the young woman there.

_Good morning. My name is Sansa Stark from Winterfell U. I’m Mr. Connington’s new intern, I believe. No, I don’t believe I’m his new intern. I am. Shit._

_Good morning. My name is Sansa Stark from Winterfell U. I’m Mr. Connington’s new intern…or one of them. I don’t really expect I’ll be working directly under Mr. Connington but…gods._

“Good morning.”

Sansa stared at the receptionist like a nocturnal animal caught in someone’s high beams before stammering out a “Hello!” Well, she’d screwed up the whole bit now. “I’m Sansa Stark.”

“Oh hello, Sansa! I’ve been waiting down here to greet you,” the woman said holding out her hand. 

“You have?” Sansa asked as she shook it. She looked around and realized that in addition to the lovely young woman before her there was another woman sitting off to the side with her shoes off, likely the more regular occupant of this desk.

“Yes, I’m Missandei, Mr. Targaryen’s administrative assistant.”

“Mr. Targaryen?”

“The CEO.”

“The CEO?” she repeated dumbly before switching her brain back on. “I’m so sorry. I had my virtual interview with Mr. Connington and I was under the impression he was the boss.”

“He is…and isn’t,” Missandei said enigmatically, her accent quite charming. “Mr. Connington runs this division of Dragonhead, Inc but Mr. Targaryen's the CEO over all of it. He likes to keep a hand in.”

"Dragonhead, Inc?" Sansa mouthed, feeling like a ninny. That was one of the larger marketing firms in Kings Landing. There'd been nothing to indicate the two companies were related or that Dragonhead owned Connington Creative.

"Come on up and I’ll explain our set-up while we get you settled, alright?”

“Of course. Thank you.” 

She followed Missandei to the elevators, discreetly wiping her increasingly sweaty palms on her skirt and telling herself this would be okay. Missandei seemed very nice. Did it really matter who the CEO or big boss was? She was just a design intern. 

The elevator doors opened and Missandei ushered her on just as someone was running across the marble floors behind them.

“Hold the door for me, Missy!”

Sansa was already in the elevator car but that voice was strangely familiar, she thought. Her brow furrowed as a sickening sensation started twisting in her guts and a warning started pounding in her chest.

“Late again, Jon?” Missandei asked in a playful tone.

_No. Oh no._

“Nearly late. The subway was packed and…”

_Oh fuck no!_

He trailed off having briefly glanced inside the elevator car as he skidded to a halt. He did a doubletake so dramatic it reminded Sansa of something out of a cartoon. She might have laughed if she hadn't been on the verge of throwing up. 

“Sansa?”

She stared at him, too stunned to say anything at first. She sure thought plenty of things though.

_Fancy meeting you here!_

_I swear I’m not a stalker._

_Seriously, what are you doing here?!_

_Why didn’t you ever come back?_

He closed the gap between them like a man walking in his sleep. His eyes and mouth were wide open as he joined her in the elevator car, staring at her like he thought she might be a mirage. 

He was tanned, holding a coffee tumbler with a satchel casually thrown over one shoulder while his charcoal grey suit jacket was over an arm. His dress shirt was a light blue and his dark curls were tied back. There was a hint of sweat on his brow. He looked harried but still damn fine. So unfair. 

“Do you know each other?” Missandei asked politely before, “Oh Gods! You said your last name was Stark! It never occurred to me that you might…”

The rest of Missandei’s words were cut off. 

The elevator doors had closed leaving Sansa and Jon alone in it and face to face for the first time in nearly eighteen months. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of Sansa Feels™️ when I'm writing this. I guess this chapter was Sansa-centric (like much of this fic) but she's had some growing to do. However, they are together again and will remain together from here on and the tone should be lighter as we move back to romance, city lights and workplace interactions. 
> 
> As for Jon's trip to Essos with Sam, I assure you that there's more to it than an extended holiday for him to 'find himself' while leaving our poor girl pining. Also, I don't write love triangles. I'm trying to decide if I want to give Jon a POV next chapter or just let him tell us through Sansa what he's been doing all this time. We'll see :)
> 
> I’ve been dabbling with another new story (I know, I know 🙈) but I’m planning to update my Captain Crow and the Hogwarts one at the very least before I post any of that 😅. Thank you for reading 💕💕💕


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa settles into her internship as Jon has a restless night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I caved and did a brief Jon POV. Don't know if there'll be more of them or if the rest will be all Sansa's. Thank you, Amy!
> 
> And do I know anything about marketing firms and advertising? Nope :)

This was her luck. Clearly, the gods hated her. 

_Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…_

Scratch that.

_Of all the internships in all the marketing firms in all of Kings Landing…WHY?!_

He looked every bit as stunned as her confirming, at the very least, that if this was the universe’s idea of a practical joke, he wasn’t privy to it either.

He swallowed hard and tried speaking again. “Sansa…” 

_You know my name, I see. I still seem to have lost my tongue._

No matter though because within five seconds (five very tense seconds of standing face to face and staring at each other slack-jawed) the elevator doors sprang back open. No button had been pushed by either of them and Missandei wasn’t shaken to the core by this encounter.

“Sorry about that,” she said, her smile covering her curiosity better than Sansa might’ve managed as she stepped onto the elevator to join them. “We’ll be heading up to the fifth floor where the design team is, Sansa, and introduce you around.” 

She did not ask if or how they knew each other though it must’ve been apparent that they did. Sansa was exceedingly grateful to her for it. 

"Good weekend, Jon?" she asked as she punched the appropriate buttons. 

“Pretty dull, thanks,” he said distractedly, too busy wincing when Sansa took two steps away from him. 

It wasn’t that she hated him. Far from it. But he’d drawn so near in his dazed walk towards her and she couldn’t think straight with him this close. 

She was practically in the corner when three more people got on with their Monday morning faces firmly in evidence. 

Elevators are one of those places that can feel incredibly awkward and tense at times anyway. There’s just something about being contained in a box with strangers or near-strangers where your mind plays these little games with you and puts you on guard. 

Should you speak if the other passenger is a stranger? Do you ignore each other? Do you even make eye contact?

Do you engage in inane chit-chat to pass the ride or turn to face the doors after speaking and making eye contact while staring up at the lighted numbers above and pretending no one else exists in the box until you get off? 

What if someone farts? What if something goes wrong leading to being trapped together for the next five hours? 

_Am I this immature?_

Sansa really had nothing to compare this to though. He was her cousin and it would be natural to express surprise and pleasure in seeing him, to hug him maybe and ask after his mother. It would be right of him to ask after her own family and wonder what she was doing so far from Winterfell U since, as far as he knew, she was still a student there. 

Blank. Nothing. She couldn’t seem to do it. 

She could see him working himself up to something again but then the doors opened and this wasn’t really the place with four people, all of them strangers to Sansa, surrounding them, was it?

But there was one thing that was clawing at her to get out, one thing he was going to know up front by gods.

“Here we are!” Missandei chirped as she stepped off.

And when Sansa moved towards the door, she looked right into his sad grey eyes and said, “I didn’t come here for you.”

His lips parted but her words had silenced him. Fine. He’d already proven how excellent he was at being silent. 

She walked off the elevator car and followed Missandei down a long hallway. She forbid herself from looking back before the elevator doors closed again…no matter how much she might want to.

* * *

“Are you still up?”

“Mmm…sort of,” came the sleepy reply.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Arya. You can-”

“No, no. Tell me about your first day.”

 _Where to begin?_ Sansa thought with bitter amusement as she stirred her soup.

“Tell me the latest in Braavos first.”

“That bad, huh?”

Sansa sighed and put her cup down. “My life is a meme.”

“How so?”

“Did you know that Connington Creative Group was owned by Dragonhead Inc whose CEO is none other than Rhaegar Targaryen?”

“Um…no. Why would I? And who in seven hells is Rhaegar Targaryen?”

“Oh, good to know I’m not alone there. Here's the part where I'm a meme. Was anybody going to tell me that Jon’s father’s name is Rhaegar Targaryen or was I just supposed to find that out on my first day of my internship with his company?”

“Congratulations, you’re a meme. Wait…are you serious?”

“Yes. If you can stop chortling at my expense, I’ll tell you the rest.”

“The rest?! There’s more than you working for Jon’s father to tell?!”

_Hoo-boy, I’ll say._

“Let’s start at the beginning of my day, shall we?”

Of all her peers, Arya was the one person who understood this mixed up thing. Maybe it was because she was her sister and he was her cousin and because she was privy to information that Sansa’s friends were not. Maybe because she’d been there _that night_ when everything had happened and been by her side the following weekend when Robb had behaved like a caveman regrettably intent on questioning Jon's intentions and defending his sister's honor, yadda, yadda.

Arya understood. She didn’t make her feel like a loser for the feelings which hadn’t left her completely despite nearly a year of radio silence on both ends, hadn’t called her a fool for still thinking of him fondly at times.

After the elevator, there’d been a brief text exchange while Sansa had been filling out some Human Resources paperwork.

Jon: _I didn’t know you’d be here._

Sansa: _Same here._

Jon: _Mum said your dad mentioned an internship but I didn’t know it was here or even in KL._

Maybe because her dad didn’t like mentioning Kings Landing to his sister after her own experience down here. Good old Tight-lipped Ned, as she was coming to think of her father in her mind, hadn’t exactly been pleased about Sansa’s decision when she’d announced it either. Like the song says, time makes you bolder and children get older but that doesn’t always mean you like it. 

Sansa: _Surprise._

Jon: _I know you didn’t come here for me and I don’t want to intrude on your first day but I hope we can talk later._

Sansa: _Yeah, later._

Sansa: _Much, much later._

He didn’t text back after that, the message had been received.

Even so, she’d spent two hours with her stomach clenching up every time someone passed through the glass doors into her area until she told herself to stop it. He wasn’t going to stride through them all dramatic and intense and demand that they talk. 

That wasn’t Jon. 

He would let her get through her first day without cornering her by the copier or some such nonsense. 

It helped that Advertising Strategies where he worked according to Missandei was on the seventh floor and Design was on the fifth. Maybe she needed to use the stairs more often though.

She’d spent the rest of her morning trying to learn names and where office supplies were located before Missandei offered to take her to lunch. Sansa wondered if the CEO’s assistant made a habit of taking interns out to lunch on their first day or if she just looked that pathetic after their conversation earlier where she’d slowly and politely made her way around to asking about her and Jon’s relationship.

_“He’s my cousin. We’ve not talked in a while and I didn’t know he’d be here.”_

_“Not even with Mr. Targaryen being the CEO?”_

_“I’m sorry but why would Mr. Targaryen being the CEO mean anything?”_

She’d never felt like a bigger idiot than when Missandei had nervously explained. 

Sensing that Sansa wasn’t in the mood to talk or eat much more after that, Missandei had kept up a credible din of chatter about Naath where she was from and her own experiences at KLU when she’d been there to pass the time along with little tidbits about the company.

 _“He’s not been here very long but he seems very nice,”_ Missandei had said when they’d been heading back. 

_“I know. He’s my cousin. We’re just not that close is all,”_ she’d replied, ignoring the dagger to the heart those words were. She wasn’t about to say anything for better or worse about her cousin Jon who was Missandei’s boss’s son. She was smarter than that at least. 

After lunch, she’d been rushed into a meeting with pen and paper to observe a brainstorming session even as her brain had been awhirl with so much new information. 

She’d felt like the proverbial sore thumb when one of the design team members had asked for her opinion in front of everyone by way of ‘introducing’ her. _“The flowers are pretty,”_ she’d said regarding the wine label or some such dumb thing. What was she even doing here?!

“What am I doing here?” she whispered into the phone, ready to break down and weep.

“You’re doing everything we talked about when you told me about this. You’re breaking out from the security of home and campus life to experience something new in a new place, to see what it’s like in the work-a-day world and if this is something you’d enjoy doing for a living or not. And you’re not leaving over Jon being there.”

“I’m not?”

“No, you’re not. If you didn’t go there _for_ him, you’re not running _because_ of him either, dammit.”

“Right,” she said, feeling a little more sure. 

“But Sansa…you need to talk to him at some point.”

“Right.” She wasn’t sure of anything. 

* * *

_Do you think about me at all?_

_I think about you. I think about you every day, Sansa._

Jon groaned and rolled to his back again, his bed feeling particularly cold and enormous tonight. It was nearing midnight but sleep wasn’t going to happen yet, maybe not at all.

From the moment he’d recognized her standing in the elevator car, he’d been in torment…which served him right, he knew. 

_“I didn’t come here for you.”_

Why would she?

After it happened, he’d needed time. It absolutely would not have been right of him to continue what they’d only just started or attempt to commit to a relationship one week after the sudden death of his dad. 

Three months hadn’t made him any more ready to start a long-distance relationship either despite how often he’d thought of her. 

_We could’ve talked though._

But she was far away and bending her ear over every shit day he had just trying to get his mother to get out of bed once a week and take a shower while confronting his greedy ass Dayne cousins and dealing with the new job in Starfall he’d promptly hated wasn’t what anyone would want to hear that much about, was it? 

_She might’ve listened anyway._

By that September, when he’d known she’d be back at university, back with her friends and other guys who were actually present in her life and had something to offer her besides his depression and a growing fondness for drinking alone, he’d convinced himself it was probably for the best that he stayed away.

He’d never been that great at communication, not with others about personal matters. As a kid, he’d been quick to withdraw and keep things close to the vest, internalizing and analyzing things on his own. Wasn’t that the lot of an only child? Why bother your parents with your feelings when you can smile and pretend it’s all swell? 

That brief but significant time with Sansa had been an anomaly for him as girls went. Never had he felt so comfortable just talking to someone of the opposite sex while simultaneously experiencing undeniable attraction towards her. With the exception of Sam, there was no one he’d ever truly opened up to as readily as he had with her.

_Before you shut her out for good._

She’d looked so beautiful this morning on the elevator despite her clear shock and dismay at finding herself face to face with him.

And why wouldn’t she be shocked and dismayed? 

He’d ruined his chance with her with his silence. 

His guilt had told him he hadn’t deserved one in the first place.

_“Why didn’t you tell me he’d got short of breath on the hike?! We could’ve had him checked out right then and there!”_

_“He said he was just winded. I didn’t think-”_

_“You didn’t think?! You were distracted by something else is what you were!”_

_“Mum, please…I’d give anything to go back and…”_

_“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Your little cousin, Jon? Five years you’d not seen her but you fucked her the second you got the chance?”_

_“We didn’t-”_

_“You’re more like your father than I thought.”_

She hadn’t been comparing him to Arthur, he knew. 

For months after Arthur’s death, his mother’s pain had made her brittle and sharp by turns. She’d regretted her harsh words no sooner than they were out and apologized but we can’t magically unsay things once they’re said. You can’t un-ring a bell. 

_“Isn’t she your cousin, Jon?”_ Sam had asked innocently at the funeral. 

_“Why have you had my sister out all night with you like that?!”_ Robb had shouted at him the next morning, full of suspicions and assumptions…not all of them wrong. 

_“Your uncles and I would’ve killed that nasty fucker if we could’ve got hold of him,”_ his grandfather had said of his father. 

_Yes, I’m the asshole who nearly deflowered his cousin while his dad was dying outside her bedroom._

He picked up his phone, unlocked it and scrolled to her name, his finger hovering over the message icon like it had a thousand times before. 

He’d asked if they could talk and she’d said later…much, much later. How much later was that?

_All things considered, can you really complain if she doesn’t speak to you until she’s a grandmother?_

He got up and padded quietly through the flat he shared with his mother. 

Pins and needles, that was what coming to Kings Landing was like. 

She’d put the house on the market and rented a little place in Starfall. Jon had kept asking about them looking for something in Winterfell, thinking being near family would be good for them both and hoping for the chance to at least see Sansa.

His mother had still been waffling over it when Sam had called and everything had changed. 

He picked up his phone again and scrolled to a different name. 

Jon: _Sansa’s here in Kings Landing. She’s the new intern with Connington apparently._

Jon: _I hope you’re asleep and not getting disturbed by this._

Sam: _Not asleep. Gilly and I were watching a movie earlier and I’m all wide-eyed._

Sam: _Holy shit btw_

Jon: _You can say that again. I need to talk to her. I’m going to have to be honest about the reasons we went but I don’t want to betray your confidences._

Sam: _Tell her what you need to tell her. I wouldn’t be here if not for you and Gilly. I trust you._

Jon: _Thank you_

Rhaegar had been friends with Arthur once upon a time and had reached out to his widow to offer his condolences while Jon had been in Essos. They’d started talking and, when Jon had returned, his mother had started talking about opportunities and fresh starts. 

So, here he was attempting to ‘connect’ with his biological father while working at one of his marketing firms as his mother tried to find some balance again after months and months of battling major depression off and on.

And now, Sansa was back in his life...maybe. 

Sam: _Are you thinking about trying with her again?_

Jon: _I highly doubt she’ll want that with me._

Sam _: But you’re thinking about it._

Jon: _We’re going to be working together._

Sam: _In different areas and it’s not like workplace romances never happen._

Jon: _We’re still cousins which I doubt the family’s forgotten._

Sam: _You’re doing an excellent job of avoiding my original question._

Jon: _I’m sure she’s moved on._

Sam: _You haven’t._

Jon: _That’s me. I can hardly expect the same to be true for her._

The dots reappeared and he sent a quick ‘Good night’ before laying his phone down. 

Grabbing some water, he moved to his workspace. May as well do some work if he was going to be up all night. 

Of course, work is rarely productive under those circumstances and he soon found some music to go with his non-productive production. 

_‘They say you learn from your mistakes  
That's not always the case  
I see ‘em and I understand  
How I made 'em again and again_

_They say you have to have somebody  
They say you have to be someone’s  
They say if you're not lonely alone  
Boy, there is something wrong…’_

_They_ can be so incredibly fucking wrong sometimes, can’t they? Lonely and alone aren't necessarily synonyms. 

But now the one woman he wanted was not only in the same city as him but working in the same building. 

He wasn't sure she'd ever willingly speak to him again. 

And he couldn't blame her. 

* * *

It was Friday before they saw each other again. Dashing to catch the elevator, she caught him already inside this time.

She hesitated for a second or two before remembering Arya’s words. She hadn’t run to him and she wasn’t running because of him. 

“Hey,” she said, stepping in.

“Hey.” He punched the button for the fifth floor for her and the doors closed.

“All alone again,” she muttered under her breath.

He heard her and chuckled softly. “Yeah. I hope everyone’s well at home.”

“They are, thanks.” 

_Dad and Mum both flipped when I told them you worked here. Haven’t got around to the bit about your father being here._

She already had nightmares of Ned, Benjen and Rickard Stark all waltzing into Connington Creative wearing cowboy hats and guns on their hips to haul her out and shoot Jon’s father while they were at it. Robb would probably lead their cheer section. 

“How’s your mother?”

He looked uneasy but answered, “She’s better than she was. Sansa, I know you said ‘much, much later’ but…”

“Not when I’m on my way up to work. The elevator doesn’t take _that_ long.”

“Right.” He scrubbed at his beard. “Mum’s after me to bring you over for dinner one night if you’re willing but I’d really like for us to have a chance to talk one-on-one first.”

“Sure, I’d like to see her at some point.” _***DING ***_ “Here already, huh,” she said, knowing it sounded exactly like the sigh of relief it was. _How can thirty seconds last for-fucking-ever?_

“Right,” he said, nodding as he let her go.

* * *

Two weeks later, as Sansa was starting to feel a little more sure of herself and not so much like a wounded gazelle surrounded by lions when she headed into those brainstorming sessions, the design team met up with Jon’s department to discuss a new project. 

The Kings Landing Zoo was opening a new Red Wolf exhibit and wanted a logo and some advertising to help promote it. Sansa’s mind was immediately abuzz with ideas though she doubted anyone would be eager to hear them…until deadlines started to loom. 

Jon led the first half of the meeting which some might say was because his father was the big boss but Sansa didn’t think so. Even being a newbie intern/university student, she could tell he knew his stuff. 

She sat between Garlan Tyrell who was the design team leader and her immediate supervisor and Mark Mullendor who was a prick. As her and Missandei had been getting more friendly over lunch yesterday, their third since her first day, she’d told Sansa which guys were creeps in the company. _Didn't mention your boss Rhaegar though, I noticed_.

As the meeting continued with Garlan taking over from Jon, Mark kept leaning against her to look at her notes, apparently amused by her jotting down Jon and Garlan’s points and ideas and doodling some wolf heads along the margin. 

“Can I help you with something?” she finally whispered after the third such incident.

“No, sweetheart. You’re cute taking notes is all like a good little uni girl. Got any plans for dinner?”

Cute? Little uni girl?

What was she supposed to be doing here if she wasn’t learning about the job? 

Dinner?! 

_Not this side of seven hells, pal._

She glared at him. 

He winked back at her. 

So she huffed and shook her head before going back to her notepad. 

When the meeting wrapped up, Jon stopped Mark from leaving the room with the rest and asked Garlan to hang tight. Sansa lingered in the doorway long enough to hear, “Her name isn’t sweetheart.”

Embarrassed, she darted back to her cubicle.

 _“Her name isn’t sweetheart.”_ Gods, his voice was so low and dangerous there.

Should she have said that to Mark herself? She didn’t want Jon to think he had to protect her. He didn’t need to take on Robb’s caveman role. _Gods, please don’t do that._

It took her thirty-five minutes after the meeting ended to work up her courage to go to Garlan. He was her immediate supervisor after all. 

She hadn’t met Rhaegar Targaryen yet and didn’t know if she would be anytime soon. Mr. Connington had only seen her once briefly on the second day other than when he’d interviewed her via Zoom months ago.

 _“It seems you’re related to another employee here. That won’t be a problem, will it?”_ he’d asked, his bushy eyebrows and serious demeanor alarming. 

_“No, sir. It won’t be any problem.”_

_“Good. We don’t need problems here.”_

_Two weeks on the job and I’m causing problems_.

“No, you’re not causing problems, Sansa,” Garlan said. “Mark made the problem. Jon overheard him and was right to call him out and bring it to my attention. He’s under my supervision and, as you’re an intern working on my team, it’s my place to nip that kind of nonsense in the bud.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Damn, she was glad to be directly under Garlan at the moment.

_And maybe under Jon in another way when he gets all growly like that?_

_NO!_

_Oh yeah._

_SHUT UP!_

“Hey.”

She yelped and dropped her pencil from where she’d been back to sketching out her Red Wolf logo idea. Jon had reappeared and was right next to her. It was nearly quitting time. Was he going to corner her to talk now? 

“Sorry. You okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks. Garlan told me about…thanks for that.”

“I didn’t want you to be pissed at me but...well, you're the intern and Mark’s starting to develop a rep I don’t care for.”

“Yeah, Missandei mentioned that. I’m not pissed at you. Thanks for speaking up. I’m still learning how this goes.”

“I know. Me, too.” He looked down at her paper and grinned at her sketching. “Got some ideas already, have you?”

She flushed. Why’d she have to go and flush whenever he praised her? “Yeah. I might like to see the wolves to get some better ideas,” she added, scowling at her rough draft.

“They’re there at the zoo just not in the new habitat yet. I could take you or…”

She shook her head. “No, thanks. Not…not yet.” He covered his crestfallen expression after a few beats. “Thanks for earlier though with Mark.”

“Of course. I thought Garlan should know and…I didn’t like him calling you sweetheart.”

He walked away, passing through the glass doors back towards the elevator, when it occurred to Sansa that Jon had once called her sweetheart.

_And I hadn’t minded one bit._

* * *

_‘Can't we just talk?_ _  
Can't we just talk?  
Talk about where we're goin'  
Before we get lost  
Let me out first  
Can't get what we want without knowin'_

 _I've never felt like this before_ _  
I apologize if I'm movin' too far  
Can't we just talk?  
Can't we just talk?  
Figure out where we're growin'_

Saturday afternoon and Sansa was knee-deep in studying even with the radio on in the background. Between the internship and the two courses she was taking at KLU, time seemed to zoom by but at least her weekends were free for studying and relaxing.

She was getting up for a sandwich and study break when her phone buzzed.

Jon: _So when a person says ‘much, much later’ how long might that be in the time-space continuum? Asking for a friend._

Sansa: _Does your friend like Star Trek?_

Jon: _Yes, he’s a huge nerd._

She giggled before texting back.

Sansa: _I’m studying. Don’t distract me._

Jon: _Sorry._ _I’ll leave you alone._

She smirked and laid her phone back down. She’d done her waiting. He could wait on her. 

Near nine though, she was picking it back up. That damn radio station kept playing Khalid and it got boring in this cupboard of an apartment all day studying. Visiting the zoo and sightseeing in the city would be better with some company, right?

Sansa: _I’m going to the zoo tomorrow afternoon to see the wolves._

He was responding within seconds.

Jon: _I love wolves. What time?_

Sansa _: 4. Just meet me there._

Jon: _Ok_

Sansa: _See you then_.

No response. That was fine. There wasn’t anything else to say really. Maybe he was busy now and…

Jon: _I spilled hot coffee all over myself while replying to your text. I’ve got to finish cleaning up but I can’t wait to see you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE they're going to TALK next chapter and Jon's going to be working on his woo game before too long. Thank you again and again for those of you willing to wade through this with me. It's kind of cathartic to write tbh. 
> 
> I know Lyanna said very harsh things but, when we're struggling emotionally, we sometimes say those awful, harmful things even to those we love the most. 
> 
> I may be adding some tags/warnings regarding Sam's past next chapter but let's just say that Randyll Tarly has been competing with his book canon awfulness when it comes to his oldest child for years. Warm hugs for Sam. 
> 
> Lyrics from 'I Like What You Say' by Nada Surf and 'Can We Just Talk?' by Khalid.
> 
> Finally, I hate having to put stories on comment moderation but replies to other commenters that are clearly just an attempt to pick a fight aren't cool. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa meets Jon at the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for brief mention of a past suicide and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> **EDIT 11/20/20** adding this lovely mood board below by palominaoncrutches which may inspire me to get back to this one. Thank you, my dear!

Sleep had taken a while to find her last night after her impulsive decision to text Jon with an open-ended statement about going to the zoo.

The fact that he’d texted back at once wanting to join had been pleasing. (And the possibility that he’d spilled hot coffee all over himself as he’d been hurrying to text her back was kind of amusing and curious both.)

Yes, a petty little part of her had thought about leaving him on ‘Read’ when he’d asked what time they might meet or saying she’d just been texting him with her plan for the day and so sorry if he’d misunderstood but she’d sent the text for a reason. Yanking his chain wasn’t the reason.

She wasn’t having second thoughts about the invite exactly because, whatever their past, they would always be related to each other and they were now working together. They could be grownups and talk today, maybe clear the air a little so they could put the past behind them and move forward.

_And yet…_

Gods, she’d spent too much time thinking about him last night in a manner she’d refused to for nearly a year.

_Other than the incident from the other day where he said, ‘her name’s not sweetheart’ to that prick and you got all-_

_Alright! You got me there! Happy?!_

Still, the past year she’d been working on a different outlook in life, one that did not center all its energy on her relationship status or the attentions of men.

Not that she _never_ wanted those things or the kind of relationship her parents had or what Robb and Jeyne had. It was more that she'd come to realize that romance could be _something_ but not _everything_.

When she’d been hoping that Jon would find his way back to her, she'd not been dating anyone. Once the realization had hit (like a ton of bricks) that he wasn’t coming back, she’d altered and adapted that some until it probably resembled Arya’s attitude a little more than she would’ve ever thought possible when they were younger.

She didn’t want to date someone just for the sake of dating. If there were no sparks by the end of date number two, there was no date number three. She didn’t wish to be cruel but wouldn’t pursuing things with someone who only stirred lukewarm interest in her at best be crueler in the end? She was worth more than fancy dinners in exchange for blow jobs with guys like Harry. She wanted something else besides sticky fumblings and 'meh' kisses with guys she couldn't see herself ever falling for. She did not need someone else in her bed at night to make her life complete. She was already a complete person just being herself.

(Yes, she’d read up some on self-love and not the kind that involved a vibrator...though that variety of self-loving wasn’t anything she’d turn her nose up at either.)

_I just want that 'Oh' moment, you know? That 'Oh, this might something. This might even be...it.'_

Granted, the only time she'd ever felt that with anyone had been with Jon. 

_Thanks for reminding me._

Someday, she would find herself ready to pursue something else with someone perhaps but, for now, she was busy living her life and it was time to move forward in regards to Jon.

So, what would moving forward mean when it came to him?

She couldn’t readily put a label on it. Her attraction to him hadn’t disappeared but she wasn’t ready to toss her heart at him again either. Hers had been too stung during the months that had passed from Arthur’s death to Jon leaving for Essos with nothing from him following the night they’d spent talking after the funeral beyond his assurance that he thought about her every day.

_Step Seventeen: Figure out what you want when it comes to Jon._

_Step One: Get dressed and get out the door._

Sunday had dawned overcast and cool but humid. It hadn’t changed much in the intervening hours and she needed to get going and stop grimacing at her wardrobe.

Sansa: _If I wear a skirt, my legs might get cold. If I put on a coat, I’ll be sweating. This is no way to have a winter._

Arya: _Gods, tell me about it! I’m sick to death of freezing fog. Where are my snows?!_

Sansa: _I invited Jon to go to the zoo with me today_

Arya: 👀

Sansa: _I wanted to see the wolves for that project I told you about and figured it’d be more fun with company._

Arya: 👀

Sansa: _Will you quit? I thought it might be a good no-pressure place to talk, too._

Arya: 👀 👀 👀

Sansa: _What should I wear for an outing to the zoo when it’s humid but also chilly? My company obviously has zero bearing on the decision._

Arya: _Did you just ask me about clothes?_

Arya: _Did you just pretend that Jon being there with you will have zero impact on what you wear?_

Sansa: _I’d better go. I don’t want to be late._

Arya: _It’s not like he can’t wait for you if you are! And tell me everything later!!_

* * *

The Kings Landing Zoological Park had been built over a century ago. It possessed a charming air of times gone by with its cobblestone paths, warm earth tones and cozy little overlooks and resting nooks by their exhibits. 

The fountains out front though were the park’s signature icon for this century. Built fifteen years earlier, they had over 200 different jets that shot off in sequence throughout the day and lit up in an array of colors when night fell and guests were being shuffled out of the park for the night.

Ordinarily, she’d be itching to sketch them and the kids racing around them but Sansa had arrived at the zoo half past four, horribly late. 

She was also immediately overwhelmed by the smell of chlorine from those fountains. She needed to find the wolves and Jon but scent is strongly linked to memory and she was assault by dozens of memories from _that_ night and couldn’t seem to move. The hotel pool, their conversation in the echoing chamber with the lights flickering through the still water. His dark eyes drinking her in, the taste of Northern stout and peach vodka. The intimacy of the water and their lack of swimwear. Their discovery by Arya and others.

“What am I doing?” she said to herself, her breath coming in short pants. 

“Hey, Sansa! You made it!”

She spun to find Jon jogging towards her, carrying a box of popcorn and a little white bag and looking too damn dreamy by far in jeans and a grey henley rolled up to the elbows. 

“Sorry I’m late.” 

No, she had not intentionally been late. She was still getting the hang of the subway system and had missed a transfer and wound up having to backtrack. They’d covered all this via text so at least he’d not been sitting by the wolves the past half hour thinking she’d stood him up for…well, why would a grown-ass person do that? 

He waved away her apology. He was huffing and puffing himself as he came to a stop in front of her. "I was watching for you and was afraid of missing you in the crowd when I grabbed a snack." His cheeks turned pink when he said, “You look…your dress is very pretty.”

Her cheeks were turning pink now, too. She couldn’t exactly blame the weather but she would. 

“Thank you. It’s got pockets!” she exclaimed proudly before showing them off. 

Her mother had once told her if a woman’s dress a) makes her feel attractive b) is comfortable and c) has pockets, she’s going to keep that dress forever. So far, Sansa could not quibble over those words. Black and white striped with three-quarter length sleeves and a full skirt (and pockets!), she’d chosen a pair of comfortably broken-in boots to wear along with a chambray shirt for an extra layer if needed.

_Perfect for the weather, the outing and this thing which is not remotely a date._

“Pockets, huh?” he said, giving her a smile that made that warmth in her cheeks spread down into her chest...and maybe further. 

_Oh stop it_. 

“Did you get hungry waiting?” she asked, indicating the popcorn. 

The smile turned boyish. “It isn't just any popcorn. It's _hot_ and _buttered_ popcorn."

"Ah, hot _and_ buttered? Does it actually come that way? Who invented this wonderous thing?" she teased.

"Laugh all you want but at places like this I could never resist the smell of it. I was watching a kid begging his mother for some and was magically transported back to my own childhood of utter denial."

"Poor Jon."

"I know, so sad. Someone pull out a violin. Anyway, I decided to buy myself a box. I'll share if you like," he added, holding it out.

"Thanks but I can't say I'm easily bowled over by popcorn, even the hot and buttered variety." 

"Well, I had wondered about that so I got this for you instead if you’d like it.”

He passed over the little white bag. Intrigued, she peeked inside. Jon hadn’t spent all that much time with her as a kid. He couldn’t possibly know what she’d want here at the zoo. Whatever he’d selected, she’d thank him though and…

 _Oh_.

There was a caramel apple inside. A big, beautiful green apple on a stick with a rich, thick layer of caramel smothering it, wrapped in plastic with a little yellow ribbon tied around its base. Her mouth was watering just thinking about sinking her teeth into it and letting the caramel slowly melt in her mouth. 

“I…did Arya tell you how much I love these? Or Robb?” she asked, simply stunned that he’d chosen this off all the plethora of treats that were surely available here at the zoo.

“No. We went to the local water park that time when I stayed with you guys back when Mum and Arthur went on their cruise. I don’t know if you remember…”

_I remember being very frosty towards you the whole time because you’d laughed at something stupid Arya had said the second day. I remember acting like the ten-year-old I was over it and feeling very justified in ignoring you for two weeks…even when I could tell it hurt your feelings some._

“I remember.”

“They had these there and you begged and begged your mum and she said it’d spoil your dinner but then Uncle Benjen had gone with us and he bought it for you anyway.”

“Oh yeah. I remember that now. Gods, Mum was so pissed at poor Uncle Benjen but the apple was so good. I've loved them ever since.”

_And you remembered that._

_Oh my_.

Feeling rattled, she thanked him and said she’d enjoy it later but that first she wanted to find the wolves and do some sketching. 

He nodded and led the way.

* * *

For someone who’d asked about talking a couple of times the past few weeks (after months of no talking), Jon had been quiet since they’d reached the wolves habitat. That was alright. She’d come here to take a look at them and get some ideas for a new logo to advertise them. She'd not come here for him, not to Kings Landing and not to its zoo. 

_Still, he could talk._

She focused on the red wolves. _You know...the reason you're here today_. They were beautiful animals, majestic in their way. 

Their exhibit however? This was pitiful. Concrete and steel bars and some scattered hay. Sansa had seen animal shelters that weren’t so bare bones as this and this was where these creatures were expected to live their entire lives? 

“The new exhibit is so much better, I swear,” Jon said, reading her mind. 

She glanced up from her sketch pad to find him looking at her. Every time she’d looked up from her sketching pad to look at him, he’d been looking at her since they took their seat. Lots of looking and no talking.

_Maybe because you’re busy?_

True. Her furrowed brow and rapidly moving pencil probably didn’t invite conversation from any reasonable person. She had had a few obnoxious guys try and talk to her when she was busy sketching in public but she couldn’t see Jon being like them.

_And maybe because he's struggling to get started with what to say?_

Maybe. She had no answer there but she wasn't going to do all the heavy lifting for him either. 

“I’m glad to know that. I’m ready to break them out of here and lead this pack to a Northern wood at the moment.”

“We could,” he shrugged. "I'll steal a truck. We'll be gone before sun-up. Find them that Northern wood, build us a cabin there and live on the lam. Think Uncle Benjen would lend me some tools?"

She smirked. _Alright, mister, that was a touch on the romantic side for discussing a potential felony...and us possibly getting eaten by these guys._ “You’ve seen the new habitat in person then?” she asked, glancing around and wondering where it was.

“Well…just the mock up that the zoo sent when they asked for us to pitch some ideas. It’s supposed to be on the other side of the zoo, near the bears.”

“We should go see it then and see if it’s going to be as good in reality as they’ve made it on paper. If not…”

“We’ll come back at midnight and free them all?”

She laughed and let him lead the way once more. 

* * *

The new area was still under construction but most of it was fairly visible so guests could get a peek. She could already tell it would be so much better and she was happy for the wolf family. Jon knew a good deal about it being on point for the project. It was easily ten times larger, he told her, with actual trees that would normally be part of their natural environment along with rocky clefts and outcrops and a grassy meadow area for them to roam around. Lots of places for visitors to view the wolves without interfering with them but some privacy too for when the wolves needed to escape human eyes. 

She inhaled the scent of the freshly planted fir trees and her hand came to rest over her heart without her realizing it.

“Are you alright, Sansa?”

“Just the trees,” she said, shaking her head. “The smell reminds me of the woods back home.”

“Yeah, home. I’m sure you miss it. No snow down here, too many people, no proper winter.”

“It’s alright here but I do miss home.”

“Me, too. I miss Winterfell, I mean.”

She nodded...and then scowled. 

_He_ missed Winterfell? How could _he_ miss Winterfell? It'd not been his home since he was seven. If he missed it so much, why hadn't he come back?

“Not enough though, I guess,” she said, her tone dripping with vehemence. 

His eyes widened as he turned away from the wolf enclosure to look at her again. “What?”

“Not enough to find your way back there again. Guess you're a southern boy at heart.” He looked physically pained by her words. _Good_ , a spiteful, wounded part deep down inside of her thought. "'I know my way back here.' You said that and...never mind." 

This wasn't what she meant to say or how she meant to act towards him. Why did anger have to creep up on you like that? Come to think of it, love and grief did that, too. Fucking emotions. 

Frustrated, she clamped her mouth shut and started sketching again. 

His boots came into view at her feet just past her sketch pad a few seconds later. He knelt until she could see his face, those sad grey eyes looking up at her as he placed two fingers on her sketch pad. 

“Sansa, you said you weren’t ready to talk when I asked before and I'm trying to be patient even though I admittedly have struggled with that."

"I was patient. I was fucking patient for months and months for you." _Hello again, Anger._

"Yes, you were. I know. You were the epitome of patience and I didn't deserve it...not after the first couple of months anyway. I'm sorry, very sorry for how I dropped out on you. I shouldn't have done that."

"I thought you wanted to talk today."

"I do, very much. I wasn't sure if that was okay or not."

Okay, come to think of it, she'd agreed to let him meet her at the zoo. There'd been no discussion of talking things out today. So, her expectation that he'd immediately start explaining himself could be countered by the fact she'd rebuffed two earlier requests to talk. 

"We need to learn to really talk again, like we did that weekend and the next."

"I know. I need to learn to do more of that in general. I've been letting you set the pace here but I do want to talk to you, to explain some things and make an apology if you’ll let me.”

“Why would you need to apologize? We didn’t make each other any promises. You needed time and said you weren’t in the right place for a relationship. I understood. I _came_ to understand it," she corrected. "You’d suffered a horrible, sudden loss. What was our night in comparison?”

“It was a lot. It was everything, Sansa." _Everything??_ "And yeah, Arthur's death left me reeling. That's no secret. It flattened me and sucked away everything good for a while. It was still wrong of me to shut you out like I did. I’m sorry for that, more sorry than you can guess.”

Maybe he was. Maybe she could guess or maybe she couldn’t. Water under the bridge. This was some of those things that they could put behind them. 

“Would you have ever found your way there again? If chance hadn’t brought me to this internship, to the same company where you're working, this company that your father’s the CEO of, would we have ever even seen each other again, Jon?” She couldn't quite mask the accusation in her tone. She didn't really want to. 

He hung his head. “I told myself we would. Every effort made since that night though, it’s all been you and not me, Sansa, I know. Except I really did mean to come back to Winterfell. That fall, I applied for a job there when Mum started talking about selling the house and I realized the job in Starfall wasn’t for me.”

“You applied for a job in Winterfell? Before you went to Essos?” Had Tight-lipped Ned withheld that nugget? Or had he even known. Maybe not. Who wants to brag about applying for a job if you might not get it? "You didn't get it, I'm assuming," she said more gently. 

“Yeah. I didn’t get it which I guess wasn’t surprising since I’d barely started at the one in Starfall. Then, when I came back, I applied for more jobs there thinking, if nothing else, Mum and I could be close to family and maybe…maybe I’d have a shot at making things up to you, of showing you that I...that I wanted more once I was in a place where I could give you the attention you deserved.”

 _In a place where you could...oh. Ohhhh._ She was feeling short of breath. 

"Of course, that was a tremendous amount of presumption on my part since I knew there was a very good chance you'd moved on and would never want that. None of them hired me anyway. Why would they? I got a job handed to me fresh out of university. I delayed starting for two months…”

“After your dad died!” she argued, suddenly eager to defend him. How dare they not want Jon?!

“Yeah, well…it was only because of Arthur being who he was that it happened in the first place."

"You're being too hard on yourself. I've seen you at Connington. You know your stuff."

"Thanks but I turned in my notice three months after I’d started, after they’d waited and after they'd gone to the trouble and expense of training me. I took off to Essos for six months for unspecified reasons. When I came back, my reputation and résumé was shit. Mum had been talking to Rhaegar at that point and mentioned openings in Kings Landing.”

“And this is where your dad and Dragonhead Inc comes in then.”

He looked up sharply at that. She’d never seen so much raw anger in his eyes. “Rhaegar is _not_ my dad. There is only one man I will ever call my dad, okay? Rhaegar will never be that to me.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, understanding or understanding somewhat. "I've not met him yet."

"Consider yourself lucky. He's in Highgarden this month. With any luck, he'll stay there."

She patted the spot next to her on the bench again. “Sit down and tell me more.”

* * *

They’d left the new wolf area behind and were strolling along the cobblestones but had come to a stop at the elephants when he’d got around to this bit. 

“I can’t believe she said that to you!” She’d never been so angry at her aunt in her life. She’d never imagined a day when she’d even be angry with her aunt at all. 

“Like I said, we had some really bad days those first couple of months. She worried I'd taken advantage."

"I'm not a child! And she's your mother!"

"I know. She apologized repeatedly but it stuck with me. Mum’s always been extra protective of you and Arya. I don’t know if that’s your dad rubbing off on her in particular or what but she’s got this picture of you both sitting on her bureau in a corny-ass frame Arthur bought her. ‘Nieces are the Nicest.’ I think you’re eleven and Arya’s nine in it. Arya’s hair looks like a family of birds might be nesting in it but you’re sporting perfectly neat braided pigtails.”

“Gods, Pippi Longstockings again.”

“I don’t look at you and picture some freckled fictional girl, Sansa, but I think to Mum…you’re still a little girl in some ways to her.” 

“This really makes me hesitant about having dinner with her.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to hate my mother.”

“I could never hate your mother but…well, right now I’m very pissed at her." _And thank you so much for basically making your son feel a shit ton of unnecessary guilt over that whole horrible weekend._ "When did she say this to you anyway?”

“It was a month after it happened, to the day actually. You’d called her earlier that day and she’d let it go to voice mail since she hadn't wanted to get out of bed. She’d started thinking about that weekend though and, when I came home from the grocery, she was waiting for me in the kitchen.”

"Just like Robb was that morning," she murmured as another thought occurred to her. _I texted you that night and you didn’t text me back._

Actually, he had been typing responses and deleting them around 1AM when she’d woke up. He’d just never known what to say. And if his own mother had made her accusations that day, essentially comparing him to his biological father and his pursuit of an underage girl, she could understand his misery and confusion that night quite well. That didn't mean it hadn't hurt because it had but it did make things a little clearer. 

“Jon, even with her pain and grief, all of that was completely wrong and out of line. The situations were totally different. You had no position of power over me and we were both of age. And none of it was her business any more than it was Mum’s or Robb’s.”

“What did your mother say to you?”

“She…she only mentioned that we are cousins and asked if it was something I had wanted or not.”

“Something you had wanted. Of course,” he said, nodding with a bitter looking smile. 

She’d appreciated her mother’s concern but the fact that they’d been worried about him being some predator was pretty fucking unfair considering he had never behaved in a manner to make them think that way of him and she’d wanted it every bit as much as he had that night.

How much did those wretched words and his guilt wind up costing them? She wasn't sure she wanted to think about that. 

Daylight was fading. The zoo closed at dusk. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” she asked, taking his hand.

She got a true smile for that and they strolled past the lighted fountains together, the chlorine no longer making her remember questionable choices or heart attacks.

* * *

Out on the sidewalk, he glanced at the entrance to the subway station. He lived closer and had decided to walk earlier. “You said your place is near campus?” he asked as she was unwrapping her caramel apple.

“It is.”

“Campus isn’t in a great part of town and it’ll be dark soon. May I see you home? I swear, I’m not trying to force you into spending more time with me.” She raised her eyebrows wryly. “Well, maybe I am a little because the other thing I wanted to say was about why I went to Essos.”

Yeah that. She’d been waiting to see if he’d bring that up. That six month gap of him globetrotting with his buddy. Was there more to that?

Misreading her silence and expression as she thoughtfully chewed her apple, he started backtracking. “I mean, I can just sit next to you on the subway and be perfectly quiet if you want. I won’t even walk you past the front door of your building if you prefer I don’t.”

“You can escort me home, Jon," she said, pleased by his answering grin. 

They went through the stalls and climbed on the train. Once they were settled in a seat without anyone hovering nearby on a Sunday night, she decided to get the ball rolling for him. 

"Okay. Why did you go to Essos?”

“It was for personal reasons.”

“Gods forbid the two of us get personal with each other,” she said, dryly. 

“Fuck, that came out wrong." His lips twitched as she waggled her eyebrows. "I didn’t mean it was _my_ personal reasons. It was Sam. It wasn’t about losing my dad or finding myself post-uni or any of that. Okay, maybe it was a little about Arthur and dealing with Mum in the aftermath. The whole thing was about dads in a way though.”

"I'm listening." 

He proceeded to give her an abridged version of the long and painful tale of growing up in the Tarly household from Sam’s point of view. 

“I’ve never met another guy quite like Sam. When he was first assigned to be my dormmate at Starfall, I didn't know what to make of him because he was so different than any of the other guys I'd been friends with but I soon came to see what a sweet, amazingly intelligent guy he was...and couldn't help but be floored by how he could be handed so much shit as a kid and yet be so indomitably optimistic and caring in spite of it.”

In short, Randyll Tarly was the kind of father people write best-selling, autobiographical nonfiction about as a form of therapy with a side of 'fuck you.' The kind people read about and wonder ‘how the hell is this guy not locked up?’ 

_Unless they already have a parent like him._

Plain and simple, Sam was never going to be the sort of son his father wanted. He didn’t want to wrestle or play fight with other boys. The sight of blood made him woozy. He didn’t like sports. He couldn’t run fast or toss a ball well. He didn’t like snakes or the outdoors either. 

He did like singing and his mother’s cakes. 

He was badgered about his weight from the age of four. He was constantly told to stop acting ‘like a girl’ since his father was one giant heckling, misogynist windbag all around. 

When Sam was seven, he hadn’t learnt how to swim yet. His swim instructor was someone who would’ve got on well with his father. He’d been reduced to a frightened puddle at every lesson until his mother had quietly stopped taking him to the lessons, her own meager rebellion. 

The next time they’d gone to the lake for a day, his father had said he was too big to wear a floatie. When Sam had pouted, Randyll had picked him up and tossed him in deep water and then shouted at him to swim until a lifeguard had rescued the near-drowning child. Randyll had snarled about what a disgrace he was…and then whipped him when they’d returned home.

When Sam expressed an interest in the drama department at school’s next production when he’d been fourteen, his father had taken all his clothes and burned them and then told him to start wearing one of his sisters’ clothes since he was obviously a fairy.

"Pick your slur. Sam's father called him that at one point." 

Of course, Sam hadn’t been the only son. His brother Dickon had been born when Sam was five and, by the time Sam was ten, his father could already see that the gods had not cursed him with another disgrace for a boy. 

Dickon had excelled at everything Sam had struggled with. He’d liked the things their father thought boys were supposed to like. He’d been a model son…until his death at sixteen. 

“What happened to Dickon?”

Jon’s voice was eerily calm when he answered. “He was cleaning his father’s hunting rifle one night. It went off.”

Gooseflesh covered every inch of her body. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“His father told his wife and the authorities it was. Sam and his sisters believed it, too. We were at uni together when it happened. I held my best friend all night while he cried for his brother. For over a year, Sam tried to deal with his grief over the accident, going to therapy and working through his pain, wanting to understand how the gods could be so cruel until…until his father told him the truth one night not long after I’d got turned down for the first job in Winterfell. The story, as horrible as it was, had become Sam's reality of the facts. When it was stripped away, the pain was raw all over again.”

Sixteen years of being the perfect son. Except no one is perfect and living up to that ideal is an impossible and terrible burden to place on anyone, especially a child or teenager. His girlfriend had broken up with him, he was secretly failing two of his classes and he was going to get benched from the rugby squad at school because of his grades. The truth was coming for Dickon and he couldn't hide it forever. He couldn’t tell his father to his face so he’d wrote it in a note.

“Sam must’ve been devastated to learn all that.”

“He was…especially when his father told him that Dickon had wound up being an even bigger disappointment in the end than him but, if one of his son’s was going to put a bullet in his head, it should've been Sam.”

She gasped back a sob, remembering sweet Samwell Tarly’s face at the funeral, never knowing what he’d been living with or what his life had been like. 

“He called me a few nights later sounding nothing like my Sam and told me maybe his dad was right about him. I knew I couldn’t leave him alone after that. He needed me. Mum needed me but he needed me more at that time. I was...no matter what I did, I knew I was letting people down,” he said, looking at her with those sad, grey eyes again.

"You made the right choice. Your mother has two brothers, a sister-in-law and her parents living who love her. And I...I understand now. Did Gilly go with you both?” she asked next, recalling his girlfriend.

“She did come over but that wasn't until later. She has her own family horror stories and a sister that was due with a baby. They had some things to work out."

"But it's better now?" 

"Yeah, I think so. We keep going, don't we?"

"Where are they now? Sam and Gilly?"

"Ashford. Sam found some research work there. They're coming in to visit next month though."

"Are they? Maybe I could see them again."

His smile was hopeful. "I'm sure they'd like that." 

* * *

Making their way back to her apartment at last, her tummy was feeling those twinges and flutters that were so familiar around Jon and so lacking with other men. Was it fate? Her getting this internship and him coming to work here? Maybe so. Questions for another day. It was getting late and tomorrow would come early. There were still things left to say, things to catch up on and she wished for more time to talk. 

_And you can have it. You’re here and he’s here and we’re both in a better place for talking._

As she unlocked her door, Jon stood back a respectful distance. There’d be no mouths crashing together, no arms wrapping around each other...not this night anyway. Her tummy did a full somersault at that thought. Her mind and her twice shy heart were telling her tummy to cool it. 

She turned in the doorway to face him, to bid him goodnight. He was scrubbing at his beard, looking unsure. She was feeling more than a little unsure herself. _Flutters and sparks, oh my._

“Thanks for letting me come with you today and talk, Sansa. I wanted Sam’s permission before I told you about it. I’m sorry I didn’t do that sooner though. I should’ve done that over a year ago. Can you forgive me?”

“Can I forgive you for nearly 18 months of next to nada in communication after our one night?” He winced even as she smiled. “Of course, I can, Jon. I’m not perfect but I don’t want to live my life nursing resentments, grudges and anger if I can help it. That’s not me."

"No, it's not you, is it?"

"How's the line go? ‘Forgiveness is warm, like a tear on a cheek.’” 

His surprised look made her laugh. His next words made her sigh. “‘Think of that and of me when you stand in the rain...the rest is confetti.’” He'd skipped a bit but it didn't matter. Not tonight anyway. “I never would’ve imagined you willingly watching a ghost story, let alone quoting something from it.”

“It’s a good quote.”

“It is." He moved a little closer, those dark eyes intense instead of sad. She was feeling lightheaded. "So what does this mean for you and me?”

“You mean us as more than cousins?”

His throat bobbed enticingly when he gulped. “I do.”

“We’re working together. We’ve got our own family drama to figure out. I’m not trying to throw your words back in your face when I say I need some time but I think I do. I need time to believe that you’re not a ghost who’s going to fade away on me again.”

"I understand," he said, nodding and backing up a step. If he'd been hoping for a different answer, he covered it well. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, I guess?"

"Yes, I'll see you," she said, moving inside her apartment as he started to leave.

"Hey, Sansa?"

"Yeah?"

“I won't turn into a ghost again but you should know...you already haunt me.”

Her mouth became a perfect 'O' as he strode away, glancing back over his shoulder just once before he headed down the stairs and out of sight.

_Oh._

_Ohhhh._

"Oh shit," she breathed, bringing one cool hand up to touch her flaming cheek. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of dialogue and not much action, I know. We're getting there but, like Rome, this relationship won't be built in a day and Jon will need to show her he's serious. (So maybe she'll hold out another chapter...lol). 
> 
> Next chapter will find them back at the office and then meeting up with Sam and Gilly for what is surely _not_ a double date :)
> 
> The quote that starts with 'forgiveness is warm' and ends with 'the rest is confetti' is from 'The Haunting of Hill House' in case you're unfamiliar with it. The bit Jon skipped was 'I loved you completely and you loved me the same. That's all.'
> 
> Stay safe and well, my dears, and thank you so much for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me searching for my mojo with this one... 
> 
> Just trying to work my way back into it again. We'll see how it goes.
> 
> Thanks again to the lovely @palominojacoby for the picset inspired by the previous chapter. I've added it to that one :)

Jon could hear the television as he let himself into the apartment. She usually went to the coffee shop nearby for her group on Sunday nights.

“How was the zoo?”

He hung his head, attempting to hide his grimace and feeling like shit for being annoyed. This was her place, too. She was his mother and he loved her.

“Fine. Good.” _Threw you under the bus a bit. I feel bad about it but justified, too_. “No group tonight?”

“I didn't feel like going this time." She'd been irritated last week when she'd got home from it, too. "Did you invite Sansa over for dinner?”

“Um…not yet.” _I don’t know if she’ll want to have dinner with us…ever. I can’t blame her. I can’t push her either._

Forgiveness is a journey, Arthur had once told him.

It might be a short journey or a long one depending upon the offense and the personal outlook of the injured party. Maybe there are offenses which can never be forgiven. People can do such unspeakable damage to others with their words and actions. Sam’s father's treatment of his two sons was a prime example.

This was not like that but his own mother had wounded him very deeply that day one month after Arthur’s passing when she’d lashed out at him over Sansa. She’d likened him to his biological father preying on her when she was underage because he’d been with Sansa that night. The way she'd made him feel, the guilt and disgust, it had led to him stupidly avoiding Sansa which, in turn, had wound up hurting her which was the last thing he'd wanted to do. And the more time that passed as he'd avoided replying to her, the worse he'd felt and the less he knew how to fix it until he'd convinced himself he'd rendered it unfixable. 

_“And even when we do forgive, we don’t always forget so easy, son,”_ Arthur had said.

Right again, Arthur.

His mother's words hadn't been an easy thing to let go of. In fact, he'd failed to let them go completely. The bitterness was still lingering and he no longer knew how to connect with his mother. Their once strong bond had been seriously damaged by the fallout of grief and they'd fallen into a pattern, an unhealthy one. She relied on him so he avoided conflict. She told him what she wanted them to do and he tried to do that for her. She'd lost her husband and that was a horrible loss to absorb.

 _You lost your husband...but I lost my dad._

His grief mattered, too. 

But Jon hadn't realized how reliant his mother had become on Arthur for everything over the years of their marriage. Then again, Arthur had pushed Jon towards the college he thought he should attend and then lined up a job for him upon graduation. The parent leading the child except at some point the child isn't a child anymore. Perhaps it wasn't just chance that Arthur had had a sister who was constantly expecting him to fix her life for her. 

Not that he blamed Arthur for that. He'd always acted with love in his nudges but at some point, we've got to make our own choices. Honestly, there had been so many days since that night that Jon no longer knew what he was doing at all. 

“Well, be sure to ask her over soon,” his mother prodded. “I want to see her.”

The blare of a car horn reached him through the closed windows, stoking that irritable feeling again. He wasn’t very fond of the city. He was even less fond of his current circumstances. 

He rolled his neck slowly, considering the prodding that had been pushing him to do whatever his mother said for over a year and half now. 

“Yeah…that’s a no.”

“What?”

“I’m not asking her over for dinner. If you want to talk to her, you can reach out and see if she wants to talk to you. Just don’t push her.”

“You’re working with her. I just thought it’d be easier if you…”

“She didn’t come down here intending to work with me though. She felt ambushed by it. She has every right to feel pissed at me over how I cut her out."

"Well, you shouldn't have-"

"You know why I did it though. You know the stupid, awful reason I felt like a shitbag for wanting her, for being with her that night. You know what you said to me and how it hurt." Her mouth clamped shut and there was remorse in her eyes. "Look, this isn't working for us. You’ve been calling most of the shots-”

“You’re a grown man! How have _I_ called the shots?”

“Moving here and then begging me to move here with you, calling Rhaegar and twisting his arm about getting me a job-”

“He owed us. You weren’t having any luck getting a job. I helped.”

“But I didn’t ask for your help and _his_ help was the last thing I wanted.”

“Well, let’s be sure to blame your horrible mother then.”

“That’s not what I want to do. I’m sorry if I’m wording all this wrong. I’m the author of 99% of my problems and I will own that. I fucked everything up with Sansa and I’m trying to fix it if I can. It’s just that a get-together where we pretend things are swell isn’t going to fix it and I’m not going to encourage it.”

“I never pretended things were ‘swell.’ Thing have been far from swell.”

“I know. I don’t think living here is working for us. I think I need my own place.”

“What?!”

“I’m not running off. I’ll still be in the city and I’m not going to avoid you. I just need my own place. I’ve got things to work through and living together isn’t helping me work through them. I need space.”

His mother was silent for so long he wondered if she was going to reply at all. He didn't need permission but he wanted some sign. And at last, she lifted her head and gave him a subtle nod in agreement. 

One step in a new direction maybe. But the next steps, he'd need to wait for the right time to make. 

Sansa needed time, she said. And if anything was going to happen between them, he had to let her set the pace. One weekend of bonding and building attraction, one hour of passion, did not make a relationship. They needed to start anew while he worked to earn back her trust. And maybe they could finally lay the shadow of _that_ night to rest and find a place where all the potential could be something real and lasting. 

* * *

**Three weeks later**

Sansa found him at his desk working even though it was well past six on Friday. He’d shared his decision to get his own place over lunch the Tuesday following their zoo outing and found one fairly readily. Places were always available in the city, she was learning. 

_“Not necessarily places you’d want to live though, is all,”_ he’d joked. 

Yeah, it was kind of a dump from the picture he’d shown her but it was bigger than her cupboard and he was moving into it this weekend. 

Her aunt had reached out to talk but Sansa had kept that conversation short. Like Jon, she had her own bitterness to process on that end. But, she’d called her father and spoken to him about things and mentioned that she thought her aunt might still be struggling with her grief and anger. It’d do old Tight-Lipped Ned some good to talk to his sister. She knew Arthur's heart attack had fractured Lyanna's own heart. Sansa hoped she could mend and then truly mend other things in time. But all of that took time. 

“What are you still doing here?” she asked, perching on the edge of his desk.

Though he tried to hide it, his eyes flashed briefly at her legs in her pencil skirt on the corner of his desk. She pretended to brush some of her hair back out of her eyes to hide the way that made her blush. 

He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes to hers. “Making sure our pitch for the zoo people is just right.” 

Their little zoo outing and subsequent meeting with Garlan and Mr. Connington later that week had gone very well. Other than Mr. Connington momentarily trying to claim some credit over Sansa’s contribution, which neither Jon nor Garlan had stood for, it already seemed destined to go well. 

Missandei had even beamed at her and said Mr. Targaryen had been impressed when she’d shared Sansa’s logo design with him via video chat. Sansa wasn’t too sure she wanted to impress Jon’s father that greatly but she’d not said it to Missandei who was only trying to make her feel good. 

Of course, there was more to it than her little sketch and getting approval from the higher-ups. The client had to love it, too. 

“The meeting’s on Monday and I don’t want to spend my whole weekend developing an ulcer worrying over it on top of moving and wondering about Mum.” 

She placed a hand on top of his for a moment. “Life is full of adjustments. You’re still here in town.”

"For now at least."

"Yes. And you'll both work through this." 

Even though she thought Jon was doing the right thing for himself, she understood his internal conflict. As a child who’d always done her best to please her parents, she knew breaking away and saying no to the things they wanted for you or from you wasn’t always easy. 

“Thanks. I’m sorry you can’t be at the presentation, Sansa. You’ve more than earned a spot there.”

She had class at 10:30 on Mondays. Thus, she couldn’t appear at the 11:00 o’clock meeting and that was assuming anyone besides Jon would welcome her there. Still, she very much appreciated Jon’s support. “It’s just a drawing and Garlan said it will be boring.”

“Well, I'm the one who'll be doing the pitch so he's probably right about boring but your drawing will become the icon people associate with those red wolves at one of the world’s most prestigious zoos, Sansa.”

Her belly swooped with nerves at the reminder. “If the zoo accepts it.”

“They will.”

“I still say those wolves would enjoy a Northern zoo more,” she said, trying to hedge away from the fact that this could be a very big step forward in her budding career. It would be quite the thing to put on a future résumé. 

“I’m in complete agreement. I’m borrowing Garlan’s truck to move tomorrow. Maybe we’ll go break the wolves out after I’m done, yeah?” She laughed. “But what are you still doing here, may I ask? It’s well past quitting time for interns, isn’t it?”

It was. She was usually out of here by five at the latest on Fridays. “I decided to stay closer to this district until nightfall. Maybe find something to entertain me.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, his interest peaked, just what she’d hoped for.

“Well, I’m technically still something of a tourist here and the weather’s pretty balmy tonight.”

“It is. Was there something you wanted to do in particular? Grab a bite or something?”

“I don't know. I just wasn't relishing spending Friday night alone and I'm unmotivated to study. I will want to eat but I didn't know if this city might have something to offer that I've not seen before”

"Something you've not seen before, huh?" He jumped up from his desk, putting papers away and grabbing his jacket. "What if I had just the answer for that?"

"Depends on what you had in mind."

"I think you'll like it. I think it might even be right up your alley. I’m still something of a tourist here myself so what if I showed you the city lights tonight?”

"City lights? I can see them from my window here or at my apartment," she replied, feigning a bored tone though she definitely wanted to see the city lights with him. He’d removed his tie hours ago and his hair had come free of its tie. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his trousers were rumpled. He already had that jacket thrown over one shoulder.

"Not these lights, you can't."

"What's that mean?"

She couldn’t stop the smile that was forming on her face as she slid off the edge of his desk when he answered, “Let me show you.”

* * *

The Great Winter Lumi-Lights had become a Kings Landing annual event a few years ago. Even far off in Winterfell, Sansa had heard of it, quietly putting it on her ‘to do’ list for someday. But nothing had prepared her for the full effect of it. 

For three weeks during winter, Visenya’s Park was transformed into a fairyland by night filled with spectacular light sculptures and art illustrations. It drew spectators from all over Westeros and beyond to stroll along the paths for the approximately 45-minute walking, narrative journey of twinkling, towering LED lights. There were fairytale palaces, snarling red and green dragons, enormous, grinning purple cats surrounded by mystical mushrooms and lollipop forests and they were only half way through. 

Jon had shelled out the entry fee before she’d been prepared to argue. It felt like a date despite the spontaneity of the planning. 

Yes, she _had_ been fishing for something to do together tonight. Studying was not an exciting way to spend a Friday night and she didn't have much to do anyway. 

But they were just hanging out for now. She’d told him she needed time, to be sure he wasn’t going to disappear on her again. 

So far, he’d been doing his best to prove that he wouldn’t do that. In addition to texting and talking frequently, they’d started having lunch together fairly regularly since the zoo trip. Sometimes with Missandei and sometimes just the two of them. 

They’d even met at a coffeehouse near campus one night last weekend with some of the others and listened to a band Garlan's brother was in perform. The coffee was good. The band was...well, they were still working on it, she supposed. Jon had walked her back to her place that night but that hadn’t been a date…not exactly.

So, a stubborn part of her had felt compelled to clarify upon their arrival at the park, " _I could’ve paid my entry. This isn’t a date.”_

_“Of course, it’s not a date. The zoo wasn’t a date either. This is just us sightseeing together.”_

But he’d not been meeting her eyes when he’d agreed with her and then he’d promptly bought them both gyros and a bag of candy floss for her.

 _“Sightseeing, yes,”_ she’d repeated, hiding her grin. _Sightseeing can be a date though._

And somehow, they were currently holding hands as they strolled along now that the gyros were gone. _It’s chillier than I expected_. They were sharing the candy floss, too. He had a bit of the pink fluff stuck in his moustache at the corner of his mouth which he hadn’t noticed. She was tempted to lean over and remove it for him but a) it was kind of adorable stuck there and b) would she rather remove it with her fingers or her mouth?

They entered the next section of the light show, a winter wonderland where there were penguins, ice bears and snowy looking fortresses. All around them, children darted, to and fro, pointing out their new favorite thing with bright eyes dazzled with the wonderment of it. Sansa secretly shared their enthusiasm. 

_Wouldn’t be very grown-up of me to run around pointing and shouting, ‘Look! Look!’ though, would it?_

“Did you need any help tomorrow with moving?”

“I appreciate it but there’s not a ton of stuff for me to move, mostly just clothes and my bedroom furniture, and it’d mean coming over to my current place to do that.” 

The current place meant with Lyanna and Sansa wasn’t sure how she felt about the in-person reunion just yet. She needed a little more time, she decided.

“Do you need to shop for some more things for your new place?”

“I’ll need a table to eat at or some barstools at least. Sam and Gilly are coming to town next weekend and I’d thought to fix them dinner. Well, I’d like to order some fancy take-out and offer a decent wine. Would you still be willing to join us?”

She would like to see them again and Jon had said they’d like to see her but she didn’t want to get in the way of the friends meeting and feel like a sore thumb.

He seemed to read her pretty well for he added, “You’d be welcome, I promise.”

“Okay, I’ll come but it sounds like you have some fixing up to do if you’re going to entertain friends with fancy take-out and a decent wine.” 

“Yeah, a sofa and a television might come in handy, too. Would you…would you want to help me with that? I was thinking Sunday afternoon I’d go out and shop.”

“Yeah, sure. I'll help you spend your money.”

He chuckled and said, “Great. It’s a da-” His eyes widened and his mouth snapped shut so fast it was comical. 

He looked bewildered and concerned over how she would take his words but Sansa wasn’t feeling so uncertain tonight. 

She darted forward, seemingly to kiss his cheek. Instead, she kissed the corner of his mouth letting the sugar of the candy floss melt on her tongue for the space of three heartbeats and watching his eyes flutter closed before she pulled back and said, “It’s a date.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [LuminoCity Festival](https://www.luminocityfestival.com/) in New York City was my inspiration for their outing.


End file.
